Sink or Swim
by introvirtued
Summary: Gordie develops an eating disorder three years after the showdown with the Cobras. He & Chris are closer than ever, maybe a little too close. They reconnect with people; make new friends, & when everything seems calm again, a very dangerous gang rolls up into town, seeking to have complete control over Castle Rock. Will Gordie, Chris & their friends be able to beat this new threat?
1. Chapter 1: The Fight (Part One)

**Sink or Swim**

 **You stop eating. He's desperately trying to get you back to your old self - to help you get better. But still, it all eventually falls apart. /Or/ how everything you knew and everyone you loved either disappears or falls to pieces around you, and you're completely powerless to stop everything you care about in your entire life from falling apart instantaneously. — Gordie/Chris.**

 **Full summary: "It was almost that time of year again, where it would be another depressing anniversary since Denny's death. I was fifteen years old at the time when I became depressed, and decided to stop eating. That trip to find Ray Brower's dead body that was near those train tracks when I was an awkward, naïve twelve but going-on-thirteen year old kid felt like a billion lifetimes ago. Depression suddenly washed over me, and I found that I wanted to kill myself as slowly as I possibly could for some reason. I wasn't doing it for attention or something, I just felt totally numb, useless, unimportant, virtually invisible to almost everyone around me, and tired. I was also madly in love with my best friend, and to me that made it so much worse than it already goddamn was. I was only seventeen years old when I first made that decision to throw up my meals into the toilet late at night, when no one was around. To this day, my past still haunts me."**

 **/Or/**

 **"Drown them." He said suddenly.**

 **"Drown them?" I asked, confused. "Drown what? Who?"**

 **"Your demons."**

 **Right. I had almost forgotten that I rambled on for quite some time about the fact that… about the fact that I felt physically, mentally, and emotionally weighed down by my feelings, my thoughts — by everything that's ever happened to me. The laundry list of things that I've been a part of, done, heard, or seen happen. Every little thing. Including all the times when I skipped meals or shoved my fingers down my throat, to listening to the police officers saying that my older brother was dead from the stairwell, to threatening to shoot Ace in the head when he tried to kill Chris.**

 **"No, you don't understand." I said. "I can't sink or forcibly drown my demons, Chris… They-they know how to swim, how to make me feel like t-total fucking shit. They're a p-part of me." I stuttered, a lump starting to form in my throat.**

 **"Then fight back." He said, stepping closer to me. I was pinned against the row of lockers in the dead empty school hallway. His tall frame hovered over mine. I felt like a little kid again in his taller presence. Damn his height. "Show that part of you whose really in control."**

 **"I-I can't." I whispered, tears streaming down my face as I allowed myself to cry in front of him. "They know my every weakness. Those fucking things know that I… that I…"**

 **"That you what, man?" He asked quietly, gently wiping away the tears from my eyes.**

 **"That I'm not strong enough to win against them." I sniffled, wiping a few tears away from my cheeks. "They're pulling me under, Chris. I'm losing this… this fucking constant fight between my… my dark, demon side… and myself." I sobbed. "These fucking "demons"… they-they're winning. I'm losing this battle — this… this war. I'm going to drown eventually, Chris." I whispered. "And I don't want to make you drown, either. I'm not going to allow you to let yourself drown next to me. Please don't try to save me." I admitted softly, and started crying harder as I felt Chris's arms wrap tightly around my waist.**

 **"I don't care, Gordie. I'd rather drown next to you than stop being your best friend in the entire world. I'd take drowning next to you in a heartbeat." He whispered, rubbing my back.**

 **/Or/**

 **The countless meals that swirl down the toilet make you forget about your love for Chris Chambers; at least for a little bit.**

 **/Or/**

 **It's not like you don't mean to eat. You just… forget to.**

 **/Or/**

 **You're not in love. Or so you say.**

 **XXX**

 **Genres:** **Angst, Romance, Drama, Humor, Family, Hurt/Comfort, Friendship** **and** **Crime** **.**

 **Pairing(s):** **Main: Gordie/Chris** **slash, because their whole entire relationship is beautiful, and the underlying romance is clearly there/implied. Not to mention the fact that River Phoenix and Wil Wheaton had amazing chemistry together, both on screen (from the movie) and off screen (from various other miscellaneous clips that I've seen). There is also a few other ships in "Sink or Swim". Mainly** **Teddy/OC** **,** **Vern/OC** **,** **Fuzzy/OC** **,** **Jack/OC** **,** **Vince/OC** **,** **Eyeball/OC** **,** **Ace/OC** **,** **Charlie/OC** **,** **Billy/OC** **and** **Ace/Eyeball** **, with some** **Gordie/OC** **and some** **Chris/OC** **, (and not in this order) but these ships will either be secondary relationships or mentioned.**

 **Trigger warnings: Eating disorder(s), depression, character death(s), underage drinking, cutting, implied and mentioned drug use, drug use, illegal selling of said illegal drugs, mentioned, seen and implied child abuse, bullying, neglectful parents, physical and verbal arguments, self-hatred, violence, emotional damage, swearing (along with "dirty" phrases), some torture, injuries, underage smoking, mentions of toxic/controlling relationships, broken homes, cheating, mental hospitals, making jokes out of other people's insecurities/pasts/current lives/issues (etc.), internalized and externalized homophobia/biphobia, homophobic slurs (etc.), attempted assault/rape, implied mental insanity, mentions of past car accidents, and implications and mentions of suicide.**

 **So yeah, this story'll be a total freaking bag of fun to read. Sorry in advance if I break your heart, readers! (Whoops.)**

 **This storyline is set three years after Gordie, Chirs, Teddy and Vern went on the trip to find Ray Brower's dead body. Sink or Swim is also slightly,** ** _SLIGHTLY_** **AU. The characters are OOC (Out Of Character) but I try to keep them in character as much as I possibly can. This is my own personal take on what happens after.**

 **Vulgar language (because they're teenagers, obviously) and crass/dirty phrases ahead. For example: "He rolled his eyes. "I do have a fat one, thank you for noticing." He said, a smirk ghosting across his lips. "And hell yeah, I'm goddamned ready for anything you ask." He laughed."**

 **Also, anything that looks like (** ** _this_** **) is older Gordie's thoughts, as I believe he is the narrator of The Body by Stephen King. In the movie Stand by Me, the older Gordie is writing the trip to find Ray Brower's body through a flashback and publishing it. I don't know if this is what older Gordie LaChance does in The Body, but I assume he does. If he doesn't do this, then I am just going to do whatever I feel is right, which is him writing a book that's telling a flashback. The form of writing that I am using is a passive voice, which is defined as this: "The passive voice is a grammatical construction (specifically, a "voice"). The noun or noun phrase that would be the object of an active sentence (such as Our troops defeated the enemy) appears as the subject of a sentence with passive voice (e.g. The enemy was defeated by our troops)." Basically, this means that I am using was/had/thought/seen etc. in this story,** ** _rather_** **than is/has/think/see etc.**

 **Finally, I apologize in advance if there are any spelling, grammar, punctuation, sentence structure, etcetera - mistakes. I do not have a Beta reader, so all mistakes are mine.**

 **Disclaimer: I do not own the movie Stand By Me or any of its characters, and I do not own The Body by Stephen King. I only own my OC's and whatever else you don't recognize.**

 **Enjoy chapter one part one of Sink or Swim.**

 **XXX**

 **Chapter One: The Fight (Part One)**

 **XXX**

 **Gordie's POV**

"Gordon?"

I didn't glance up from the enthralling book I was reading. My eyes skimmed over the words on the page with perpetual quickness. "What?" I asked absently. I wasn't really focused on my mother. I was completely focused on my book.

"Are you sure you're not hungry?" My mother asked me, as quietly as a mouse would if they had the ability to speak human words. I glanced up after a minute of silence, in order to finish the final page of the sixth chapter in this book that I was on. It was a riveting book. I didn't want to put it down at all to look up, but I did it anyway. Just to humor her.

My mother stood in the doorway of my cozy but ridiculously sweltering hot bedroom, and her kinda-small and too-pale hands were clasped in front of her formally, palms down, like she was meeting some very important person, like the mayor of Castle Rock, who was coincidentally Ace Merrill's father. Or if she had to go for a meeting for her work. You know, things of that nature.

Even in the small town of Castle Rock in the great state of Oregon, where it's almost always seventy degrees or above and as hot as an oven almost all the time, my mother was as still as pale as a freshly white sheet, just like my had always grandmother said - she had always been that way; pale, I mean. She always had looked sad, broken, and confused, but in the great year of 1962, she was looking even sadder, more broken, and even more confused then she had been when those policemen showed up at the door late at night and begrudgingly announced that my older brother Denny had died in an unfortunate automobile accident. My mother's hair was once really beautiful - a rich, dark chocolate color that made her entire personality shine.

My father's hair, however, was probably where Denny got his hair from, with his thick, dark, glossy black raven's hair. My hair, on the other hand, came from my mother. Dark brown, a little bit on the thicker side, but not suffocatingly so. There's one difference between my hair and my mom's hair. Her hair is a little curly, but my hair is pin-straight.

( _Sometimes I still wonder what my parents were like as kids. They never told me; didn't think it was worth the energy, but at the same time, I never asked them, even when Denny was alive. I don't think Denny ever asked them either. I can't ask my parents now, which makes me regret it a whole lot. They've been dead for years now_.)

In the school year of 1962, however, my mother's dark brown hair was in a slightly sweaty, limp, haphazard and very messy bun more often than not, and there were gray hairs prominent. The gray hairs were (very obviously; desperately) combed over to the side where the most of her once pretty brown hair was in an attempt to hide those gray hairs. It was also disgustingly futile, because anyone with eyes could see that the gray hairs were still there. Her skin was ghostly pale; it had always been looking quite pale, even before Denny's death. When she was standing in my doorway, she looked like a pristine clean white sheet skin-wise, but she also had a few dusting of liver spots here and there, but nothing too drastic. Her once sparkling, warm, light brown eyes had dulled to a murky, depressing darkish wet mud color. Her eyes were like candlelight; warm, inviting. But then once Denny died, it was like the candlelight flickered out, replaced by hollowness and lifelessness that scared me sometimes. Her eyes looked glassy almost all the time. Her posture was poor and slumped, and she looked very small and very broken. The dark bags under her eyes made her already deathly pale skin look sunken. She looked a little bit scary - she looked almost… almost ghoul-like, if I'm honest with you. And depressing. Can't forget about depressing, too. Seriously. Just thinking about her physical, weighed down appearance even now makes me shiver and feel a little queasy.

I tried not to wince at the fact that she called me Gordie. I just ignored it. "Yeah, I'm not hungry, Mom," I said for the what felt like the fiftieth time in a row, when in reality it was only three times. My voice sounded hollow, even to my own ears. I grabbed my bookmark, which was just a piece of blank scrap paper, and set my book down on my wooden-painted-bright-white bedside table. "I ate a big breakfast earlier." And I'm not lying. I _did_ eat a big breakfast that day. Bacon, scrambled eggs, a ton of pancakes with maple syrup, an assortment of sliced fresh fruit from the market, and to top it all off, a refreshing, cold glass of orange juice. It was good, to say the least.

"But breakfast was hours ago, Gordon." She said weakly. It was very true, breakfast *was* hours ago. I had abruptly woken up to the sound of a car honking it's annoyingly loud horn at seven in the morning without a care in the world. It went on for a long, agonizing couple of minutes and didn't stop. I didn't know who honked their car horn for an ungodly amount of time at an ungodly hour in the stupid morning, but I assumed it was those no-good Cobras.

Ah, those fuckers.

They were always pulling stupid stunts like that to get a ruse out of the people in town, especially the people in the cookie cutter suburbs or in the "slums". They didn't dare go near the richer parts of our own. They either weren't allowed to or didn't bother thinking about pissing those wealthier people off. The Cobras were held in the town jail overnight many times, according to Vern, whose older brother Billy went everywhere Ace Merrill (who was still the dickhead leader of the Cobras) went. They did whatever the hell they wanted, whenever the hell they wanted, and they got off lighter than anyone. Personally, I silently hoped they would stay in jail for the rest of their damned lives, but no good Ace's father was somehow the mayor of Castle Rock, and Charlie's father was a well respected police officer who worked at that jail, so my wish never came true, no matter how much I hoped.

As I was saying before, I threw myself out of bed, ran a comb through my messy-from-sleep brown hair, and then I stumbled downstairs and ate breakfast as quickly as I damn could, determined to fall back asleep, and wishing to get another half hour of sleep. I got my wish, and I was able to sleep for another really glorious two and a half hours.

Anyway, my mother had been trying to get me to eat something for a long time now, and I don't mean it just started this morning. It randomly started three weeks ago, without any indication or warning. I didn't know how or why it happened, it just did. I still don't know why it happened when it did. I refused to eat anything that she (or anyone for that matter) cooked for me. I turned down my favorite foods in favor for peanuts or a few crackers; something light like that. I didn't know why then, but I had a faint suspicion that it had something to do with "teenage rebellion", or something like that. I was a weird kid back then, and I was awkward too. I was especially awkward at the age of fourteen through seventeen.

"…Which isn't all that okay, not with me. Gordon, you must be hungry by now, surely." She was saying, "eat at least a sandwich or something." Her voice broke on those last word.

"No." I growled stubbornly, then crossed my arms over my chest. "I'm _not_ hungry right now, Mom." I muttered. Well, the truth was, I was kinda starving half to death, but I absolutely refused to eat or drink anything in the past two days except for a full ham and cheese sandwich, a few glasses of cold water, and not even a quarter of my mother's homemade mac and cheese; it was more like an eighth, if that. That was all I ate in the last two days. I had lost a considerable amount of weight because of it, but I found that I didn't give a fat rats goddamned ass.

"Gordie… I… honey-" she tried to say something, but I quickly cut her off before she could say anything else.

"Shut up, Mom!" I nearly growled out, anger spiking rapidly through my veins, and before I could stop myself, I yelled: "Just get the _hell out of my damned room_!" The fact that I yelled at her was mostly due to all of my pent-up frustration ( _and I'm still not sure why I was frustrated_ ). It bubbled over due to this goddamned stifling heat. But I was also extremely angry at my mother too, for reasons that I couldn't understand at the time, but now that I really think about it, the fact that she called me "honey" only made my sudden burst of anger that much sudden and worse. It was like adding gasoline to a rampaging fire. You see, my mother hadn't called me any kind of "pet name" in a long, long time, except for literally just my full name - Gordon; * _never ever_ * Gordie (only my friends Teddy, Vern and Chris could call me that; and the fact that my mother called me Gordie not once, but _twice_ really grated on my already thinning nerves) - since my older brother's Denny's death. That made me really damned angry. In my fifteen year old brain, my mother had absolutely no right to do that, and I suppose that was true in a way. How _dare_ she.

The sudden increase of volume in my voice made my mother flinch back, rapidly nod her head (she looked like a bobble head which made me even more angry for some reason), and slink out of my room like some fucking skittish newly-born lamb.

I groaned out loud after she shut my door as gently as she could, leaning backwards on my soft but only-serving-as-even-more-of-a-heat-source bed and my head flopping into my soft pillow. I looked up at the bland white paint of my ceiling and pushed my dark, slightly sweaty brown hair up out of my face, very annoyed with it. I remember wanting to get a haircut for a while at that time, preferably one where my hair wouldn't be in my damned face all the time, especially in this kind of hot weather.

Jesus Christ, it was hot out. I'm sure if somebody wanted to, they could fry and egg on the sidewalk in two minutes, maybe even less than that. It was the kind of weather where was stifling hot outside, where everyone and everything was roasting in the damned sun, and it seemed like time was slowed down; where people of all ages had slumped postures - where working men had rolled-up sleeves and where women of all ages were rushing to get home to take a cold shower, and where little kids were hanging out in the safety and the (rather scarce) availability of shade, or something like that. Or where teenagers would go get an icy cold can of pop at some local convenience store. The summer heat wave of the year 1962 damn near slaughtered me and left me to die in a disgusting puddle of my own sweat and bones. ( _The whole conversation with my mother begging me to eat took place in the school year of 1962, well before summer. Yes, it was still hot as Hell during the school year too_.)

Anyway, it was so stifling hot outside, which sure as hell meant that it was like the inside of a volcano inside houses, especially in ones where there was no air conditioning readily available, or if houses _did_ have air conditioning units, they were really shitty ones that broke more often than they were used. I lived in a relatively well off and nice neighborhood, and I lived in a nice house that fortunately had better air conditioning than most of the other houses on my block. Unfortunately, our air conditioning unit broke down two and a half weeks ago, before this hotter-than-usual heat wave. My father said that it could take only three or four weeks to be repaired, if that. Which was great news. It's better than not having a nice and cool AC unit at all, if you catch my drift. (Sorry, bad pun.) Cold, refreshing air was and definitely still is a commodity everywhere. Especially in the suburban South.

I quickly grabbed the hem of my plain black shirt and yanked it off, then I set it down next to me and sighed lightly, feeling sweat run down my face. I felt really icky and gross, like I needed to have three cold showers just to get the first few layers of sweat off my stupid pale body. I wiped my forehead with the back of my hand, damn near ready to bitch and moan about this heat to no one. The heat was really starting to get to my head, making everything feel like it was suffocating me; like it was hard to breathe. I puffed out a long, sleepy, voice-crackly-and-slightly-choked-due-to-stifling-heat sigh. I closed my eyes, as if that would somehow block out the heat. (It didn't help at all, but it made me feel a little better about myself.)

I rolled my head to the side to look over at and out of my bedroom window, looking at the branches on my large tree that was sitting outside; the tree that was directly outside my bedroom window, I mean. It was a sturdy Californian black oak tree with sturdy branches. The branches were strong enough for a ton of people to sit on, even a couple of overweight men on one branch could stay upright without much of an issue. Teddy, Vern, Chris and myself always just used to sit outside on those branches, drinking cold cans of assorted flavored soda pop and hanging out like a bunch of idiotic kids who had nothing better to do with their time, talking about absolutely anything and everything, but at the same time nothing at all. It was nice.

( _We were all weird like that. Sometimes, when I look outside my window in my bedroom in the morning time now, I wonder if there are any other people in the world who have three best friends like I did when I was twelve; kids who sit on sturdy Californian black oak trees - or any other type of tree for that matter - and just talk their minds and hearts out for hours on end. That's an enlightening, calming and nice experience_.)

Anyway, I decided to roll out of bed and walk downstairs to get a glass of refreshing cold milk, and maybe a light snack or something. A chocolate chip cookie or a sandwich maybe. Something light. I quickly hopped down the stairs like I was a man on a mission, and strolled into the kitchen, humming a random song under my breath as I walked over to the wooden cabinet where all the junk food was kept. I really loved that cabinet. It was like my life when I was a teenager.

I glanced around my kitchen, noticing that my mother was nowhere to be found or heard, and my father was also missing as well. I vaguely wondered where they could be, but then pushed those thoughts out of my head. They're full grown adults, completely capable of taking care of themselves. Even though I still was a fifteen year old kid, I knew how to take care of myself.

I reached over opened up the cupboard next to the one where the junk food was kept, glancing inside and then snagging plate from it, holding it firmly in my hand, then I closed that cabinet door. I set the plate on the countertop in front of me before taking out a pack of Oreos, taking a few before starting to make a ham and cheese sandwich. I put said sandwich on my plate. I shoved the package of Oreos back where I found it and closed the cabinet door. Then I took out a glass and poured myself a nice glass of cold milk, closing the fridge door shut with my foot after I was done pouring the refreshing milk into the actual glass cup. God, I loved Oreos and milk together when I was a kid and especially a teenager. To this day, I still do.

I took my plate that held my food, walked out of the kitchen and moved towards the stairs, listening to my stomach growl. I had just walked through my bedroom door when I saw my best friend Chris Chambers climb through my bedroom window like an absolute badass, like something out of a movie.

"Chris?" I said, blinking over at the boy. I wasn't really all that surprised to see him here. Two months after we first became friends-but-not-best-friends (we were in preschool - he and I were both five years old when we became friends), he (as a five year old kid) snuck into my window, completely scaring the shit out of (a five year old) me. I almost threw my bedside lamp (the nearest thing I could reach) at him and screamed for my parents and Denny to get in my room, or call the cops, or chase him out with a goddamned wooden broom or something, but I decided to sit there shut my trap. I was curious as to why Chris had climbed up my damned tree that was outside my house and snuck into my bedroom at five o'clock in the morning, because that's something that doesn't normally happen when you and your best friend are both five years old. I remember being briefly curious as to how exactly a five year old kid could climb a tree to silently and not fall off and break something in his or her body, but I pushed that thought out of my head, deciding not to question that. Anyway, Chris climbing through my window started to become a routine habit. In the summertime I'd leave my bedroom window open all the time so he could just hop right through whenever he felt like it. It was a "thing" me and Chris (and yeah, Teddy and Vern came in through my bedroom window sometimes, but it was mainly Chris) always did. When we had school, I'd shut my bedroom window in the morning, go to school, come home from school, and open it and wait for him to climb through. He'd always come through my bedroom window at the same time every day, as he always did. It became a routine.

Said boy turned around after shutting my window as quietly as he could. He was wearing a black and red checkered flannel shirt with the first three buttons undone, so I could see his grey short sleeved shirt underneath, and the sleeves of the shirt were rolled up to his elbows. He was also wearing black skinny jeans, and a ratty old pair of his scuffed white All Star converse tops. Probably not the best outfit to wear in Oregon during the summertime, but I wasn't going to judge him based on his fashion choices or complain about it. He looked kind of nervous for some reason. "Hey, Gordie." He said.

Obviously, Chris had grown a lot since we were twelve, in height, physical appearance, and everything in between, that's for sure. He was fifteen years old and in tenth grade at Castle Rock High School, just like me. He was only seven months older than me. He had almost the same classes as me, which is why we stayed best friends even after that trip to find Ray Bower's body. If anything, we got much more close as friends. His physical appearance had changed quite a bit as well. For starters, he had grown in height a significant amount, so he was a little taller than I was at the time when I was fifteen. He was around 5'9", while I was around 5'6". Like the rest of the boys in the world, his voice had gotten much more deeper as a result of hitting puberty. His bright, ocean blue eyes sparkled at the edges now, which was a stark contrast to the slight emptiness that pervaded his blue eyes when he was six years old to twelve years old. Chris had "obtained" (a girl's words, not mine), a "perfectly sculpted jawline", too. Also, he was admittedly well-muscled now - but not too much or too little; he was a little bit above average, but that was okay with the rest of us, especially with me. His intimidating height, his reputation, his piercing, "protective-looking, danger-sensing, steady and calm blue eyes", and his physical body alone were all things that were totally capable of warding off and intimating bullies away from Vern, Teddy, and admittedly myself. All the girls at our high school fawned over him and fell on top of each other trying to get his attention, and all the boys at our school were jealous of how… absolutely perfect he was in high school, but not me. Even through his sudden, newfound popularity, Chris never lost his first real friends (me, Vern and Teddy), his kind, warm smile (or the infamous Chambers kids' smirk), and his charming personality, his friendliness, his laugh that made his eyes light up, and that laugh or his smile made his eyes crinkle at the corners - I could go on and on, but it'd take a while to go through _that_ list. I enjoyed seeing him smile and laugh, and I liked a lot of other small, almost invisible-unless-you-were-paying-attention-to-him things about my best friend in the entire world, Christopher Alexander Chambers. However, the hatred for the Chambers family still lingered in most people at times (especially in some of the older adults that grew up with Chris's asshole father and the elderly who grew up with Chris's grandfather and grandmother; those goddamned elderly really grated on my nerves sometimes), but for the most part that hatred was forgotten, buried deep in the past like Vern's pennies — which Vern still had yet to find, even when we were fifteen.

 _Unfortunately, Vern perished in an accidental house fire at a party before he could ever find his jar of pennies. I've always thought that Vern's older brother Billy and his younger brother Marcellus stole them and never told him about it. Too bad I can't ask Vern's brothers; I think they went to jail for driving under the influence of drugs/drunk driving, and endangering the welfare of a child who was in that car at the time of the whole DUI, but I can't be sure. I can't ask Linda, Vern's youngest sister, either. The main reason why? I don't know where she is, hell I don't even know if she's alive or not. I tried contacting her multiple times through letters and the like after I learned of Vern Tessio's death, but she's never responded to anything I've sent her. It's like she's a goddamned recluse or something. Maybe she doesn't want to be found. Which is weird to me, but I'm not going to stick my nose where it doesn't belong. What she did/does with her life is none of my damn business_.) Teddy wouldn't know what the heck do or say, even if he was still alive _today. (Speaking of Teddy and Vern, I'm sure you're wondering where they were at this particular moment in time. Well, I'll tell you. Unfortunately, me and Chris abruptly lost connection with Teddy and Vern three years ago, a little while after that faithful trip to find Ray Brower's dead body by those train tracks. I didn't really understand why we drifted apart. But we reconnected a few weeks after Chris had visited me on this day that I'm writing about. Funny how that works, right?_ )

Anyway, I smiled at my best friend. "Hey, Chris."

He grinned right back at me, and he didn't look nervous anymore. His pearly white teeth were practically glowing in the brightness of my room. "Hi, Gordie." I totally ignored the way my heart did a weird flip in my chest with an emotion I could only describe as pride. He sounded much more confident about himself now, too. It was a nice change.

I walked over to my nightstand and set down my glass of milk and the plate which held my food. "What're you doing here, dude?" I asked, not unkindly. I was generally curious as to why he was here. We hadn't arranged to hang out with each other today, so this was a total surprise to me.

"Had to get away from my dad's taunting for a little bit, otherwise I would have socked him. My old man's an asshole." He mumbled, then walked over to my bed and sat down. He looked over at my book I was reading and picked it up, thumbing through the pages absently. It looked like he wanted something to do to get his mind off of his drunken asshole father.

Worry instantly spiked up in my stomach, and it sent pinpricks of concern throughout my body. It made me feel weird, like I wanted to cry or scream at the top of my lungs, or do both. "Did he yell at you?" I asked quietly.

"Yeah." He mumbled again, then shifted uncomfortably. He wrung his hands together, swallowing audibly. "How's the book?" He asked. He most likely asked this to try and change the subject.

"It's good. I really like it." I said, taking a drink of milk.

"Yeah?"

"Yeah. You can read it after I'm done, if you want."

"Thanks." He said, setting the book down on my nightstand again. He swiped a cookie from my plate and munched on it. I didn't protest. I was fine with it.

"…Chris?"

"Yeah?"

"Did your father, um, you know…" I trailed off a bit awkwardly, wincing at how I must have sounded to him. I bit my lower lip between my teeth harshly. I felt extremely uncomfortable and awkward; I was out of my depth here. Myself - and I think about almost everyone in Castle Rock - knew that Chris's father had abused him, his five other siblings (Veronica, Brandon, Tyler, and the younger twins Julia and Carl) and his oldest brother "Eyeball" Chambers. Eyeball's real full name is Richard Matthew Chambers, but everyone called him "Eyeball" for being sharp-witted and able to stop things from a mile away; it's a pretty self-explanatory nickname, if you ask me. As the oldest Chambers kid out of five other Chambers' siblings, you'd think that Eyeball would have protected Chris from the horrors of his father's abuse, but only Veronica, Brandon, Tyler, Julia and Carl protected him. Eyeball didn't. From what I can understand now, more often than not, Eyeball even _contributed_ to the beatings he gave Chris. Which I never understood as a kid, but that might have only been because I had a kind, down to earth, funny, respectable, smart, non-abusive brother named Denny.

I didn't dare ask Chris why his father abused him and his five other siblings - due to me having an actual Goddamned brain in my head, and the availability and convenience of a let's-think-about-what-you're-gonna-say-first-before-it-comes-out-of-your-mouth-filter - that worked most of the time - and whatnot. I'm not like how Vern was, who had virtually no filter whatsoever - and I'm kind of glad I didn't. I wasn't sure if that would drive a wedge between our friendship, but I didn't dare take the risk, because I was afraid of losing Chris as my best friend.

"Did he what, Gordie?" Chris's voice pulled me out of my thoughts. I blinked twice, not realizing that I was munching on one of the cookies. "Did my stupid father abuse me again?" Chris asked in a flat voice, and for me it was like hearing about some guy who committed suicide by hanging. It was like when I found out that Vern had died by accidental house fire, or… or if Teddy was still alive, and I found out that he was admitted into a mental hospital a few counties over from Castle Rock. Extremely confusing, worrying, and painful to wrap my head around, and not something I'd want to hear because it made me physically feel like shit. I hated those words coming out of Chris's mouth with a passion. He shouldn't have had to go through anything like that. None of the Chambers sibling should have, but Chris especially.

I winced again and nodded my head, trying not to look shameful, awkward, or remorseful, or something stupid like that. "Yeah. Did he?" I cringed at how awkward my voice sounded. I ran my hand through my hair before I walked over to my bed and sat down next to him.

"I… yeah. He did." His voice dropped considerably lower, and he looked a little small and vulnerable, too. It made my chest physically ache in a way I didn't think it could even do.

"Where?" I demanded, watching as he walked over to my bed and sat down gingerly, his face twisted up in a grimace of pain. "Chris?" I asked when he didn't answer me.

"Gordie, it's fine." He muttered.

"It's not fine." I said softly.

Chris narrowed his eyes slightly at me. His ocean blue eyes looked a few shades darker. "Gordie, it's okay." His voice was stone-cold calm, and his face was calm, but I could hear an undertone of "drop the subject, man" permeating his voice. I knew that he wanted me to drop it, but I wasn't going to. I wanted to make sure that Chris was truly fine. Where his dad hit him.

"Chris, where did your asshole of a father hurt you?" I ignored the fact that my voice was getting a bit louder and shaking quite a bit. I was surprised that my parents didn't barge into my room yet and kick Chris out.

"Gordie, listen to me." He said, voice rising a bit in anger, "it doesn't matter where he hit me." He said, then shrugged off his flannel shirt, throwing it down next to him on the bed because it was so hot.

"Why?" I questioned. Then, as a quick harmless joke, I asked: "Did he spank you?" In hindsight, I probably shouldn't have said that, because kids *did* in fact get spanked (and sadly I was one of them; I was three and I got under the sink and seriously thought it was a smart idea to eat a random amount of bleach) but I was trying to lighten the mood.

Chris rolled his eyes. "No. He didn't spank me. But thanks so much for asking, Gordie." His voice dripped with sarcasm.

Annoyance and some more fear spiked through my veins. He was acting off, not like the Chris I knew and loved in a platonic way. "Then damn it, Chris, where did your damned asshole of a father hit you?" I questioned again, and my voice rose considerably. I couldn't help it. Chris was my best friend. Friends look out for each other, right?

"Gordie, it _doesn't_ matter." He snapped, his voice dangerously low. Somewhere in the back of my mind I knew that I should have backed out from the conversation and let it go, but my concern for Chris's wellbeing was far greater. It was in the front of my damned head. It was like a loud red siren wailing in the front of my mind. It wouldn't go away.

"You know damn well it does matter, Chris!" I yelled again. "Your lousy jerk of a father has been abusing you and your siblings for-"

"IT DOESN'T MATTER HOW LONG IT'S BEEN GOING ON FOR!" He screamed.

I tried not to flinch at the volume of his voice. "It does matter! It matters to _me_! You're my best friend, Chris! And I care a whole lot about you!" I yelled.

"You shouldn't care about me!" He argued. "I'm nothing but a damned lowlife Chambers kid!"

"Don't say that." I snapped, but my anger filled voice had dropped to a soothing, quiet, comforting tone. As soon as those words left my mouth, I got a weird sense of déjà vu; I felt it spark inside of my brain like a light switch had just turned on. I was reminded of the night when Chris was on watch for "anything scary, like bears, ghosts, wild dogs, lions and tigers" - those were Vern's words - while me, Vern and Teddy were all sleeping by the fire we had somehow made, with that gun in his hand, and he admitted to me that he stole the milk money. I remember going over to Chris and sitting next to him after I had that nightmare of my brother's funeral, and my father saying that it should've been me that was dead, not Denny.

I remember that Chris started to cry when he said he was nothing but a lowlife Chambers kid who desperately "wanted to go some place where nobody knows me". I felt my heart break for him. I felt sympathetic, because even if I would never had admitted it out loud to anyone while I was a kid/teenager, I too, had often thought about leaving Castle Rock behind me too. Maybe not as much as Chris, but I still wanted to leave this town - _my_ town - behind, in the dust. I comforted Chris throughout the night, staying by his side (even though a part of me wanted to crawl back into my sleeping bag, near the warmth of the fire, and the safety of my friends and sleep for a couple more hours).

But I stayed there with Chris instead, leaning up against that tree, hugging him and just being with him as a kind of support cushion. I let him cry into my shoulder until exhaustion from the hot day's walk and the multitude of activities - like me and Vern running across the train tracks from a train that would have killed us if we didn't stop, me and Chris getting lost together in the thick woods under the hot, Southern summer sun for an hour after we agreed that we needed to talk about something that I can't remember now (and then ultimately screwed up and got lost), and myself running for my life from a damned dog; hey, I thought that he would chomp my balls off, and a boy's gotta run away from situations like that - finally took its hold on me.

I fell asleep with my head on his shoulder and his arm slung around my back. I didn't know exactly when his arm had slung itself around my back, but I didn't really give a crap when Chris had done that. When I woke up in the morning, my head had somehow "magically" slid down onto Chris's lap, his tan hand was resting softly in my hair, gently combing through the dark brown strands with a care I didn't know he possessed. The gun that was in his hand the night before while he was on watch was next to him on the ground, with the safety on. I'm pretty sure I saw it when I woke up for a minute and laid there as still as a rock, looking out into the darkness, with the low, amber glow of the slowly dying campfire as my only source of light.

I had just opened my eyes. The bright Southern sun shined down on the both of us. I wasn't sure what time it was, but I guessed it was around six-thirty in the morning. Maybe just six, though. I wasn't too sure. Even though my brain was fuzzy and maple syrup slow from just waking up, I was pretty sure that Chris had gently guided my head to his lap sometime in the night while I was fast asleep, and he gently laid my head onto his jean-clad and a blanket-to be-used-as-a-makeshift-pillow-warmed lap, so I wouldn't get a sore neck when I woke up in the morning. There was also a blanket spread out on his legs, so they didn't get cold during the nighttime. I didn't know how Chris had managed to get the blanket, or when he had done just that, because I couldn't ( _and still can't_ ) remember being awoken or jostled up from my sleep. Maybe Vern or Teddy had handed the blankets to Chris? I'm not sure.

Anyway, I had glanced up and noticed that Chris was still asleep, with his head angled down, so his face was facing me. There was a makeshift pillow made out of a blanket for his head, so he wouldn't have had to make his head stay in an uncomfortable hard place, AKA the rough bark of the tree. The position he had his head in look awkward. I remember being shocked by how much younger he looked when he slept, even when he was twelve-going-on-thirteen years old. There weren't any worry lines on Chris's face; they had virtually disappeared. In his sleep, the outside world couldn't get to him, couldn't reach him and taunt him with anything, with the memories of broken promises and the sickening feeling of "never getting out of this town". It was like he was a different person when he slept; he looked much more innocent, much more like a little boy whose innocence was still in-tact. The next thing I noticed was that there was a rough textured but really warm blanket draped on my slender body, and then I realized that Chris's other hand had slipped under my shirt and rested on my pale waist sometime during the night and stayed there. It was nice, especially because… because… well, the hand moved up and down along my back and traced down my spine and waist in a comforting, safe gesture. I'm not sure if Chris even knew he was doing it. Regardless, the gesture made me feel happy, like when Denny was still alive. Whenever I was stressed about something, Denny would notice almost immediately. He would always sit down next to me on the couch, or on my bed, or wherever type of furniture I was sitting or laying down at the time, and he used to hug me and comfort me. We'd talk about random shit until I couldn't remember why I was sad or stressed out anymore. Anyway, Chris's hand was warm and soft, and just being in such a close proximity with him had made me feel really safe. Like Chris was somehow Denny, but at the same time, he wasn't. I knew for a fact that he wasn't. He was Chris Chambers, my best friend.

When Chris started to stir awake from his sleep, I quickly closed my eyes and hoped that he wouldn't suspect that I was staring at him. When I laid still and "fell asleep" again, my breath was caught in my throat. I waited. A couple seconds later, I felt Chris's hand, the one that was tangled up in my hair, start to run through my hair again gently. After about twenty minutes of enjoying the warmth of Chris's hand running its course through my hair, I decided to shift a little bit, just to alert him, to let him know that I was "starting to wake up". I shifted my head so when I opened my eyes I'd be staring directly up at his face. Relishing in the feeling of Chris's soft fingers running through my hair and his other warm hand on my waist, I opened my eyes slowly.

"Hey." I murmured, my voice thick with sleep.

"Morning, Gordie." He greeted, smiling down at me. His eyes crinkled at the edges, which made me smile automatically. I got a warm feeling in my stomach. We talked about random things for a few minutes and stared at each other with bright, happy eyes. "How'd you sleep?" He asked eventually.

"I slept fine." I murmured, smiling when his fingers glided up and down my back gently. "You?"

"That was the first time I've slept peacefully in a long-ass time." He admitted. I knew it was true.

I smiled. We smiled at each other and talked quietly amongst ourselves until Vern and Teddy awoke and started to roll up their sleeping bags, chatting loudly and just being two motherfucking idiots together, like they always were. Chris and I walked back over to our friends, and Teddy made a joke about me "looking like a dumb baby when I slept with my head on Chris's lap." I drowned and asked him how he knew. He said that he got up in the night to take a piss, and he saw us "snuggling" together, then jokingly asked if we tried to get into (or successfully got into) each other's pants. Chris and I glared evilly him, and the two of us started shouting loudly in this really dumb yet playful way at Teddy. Vern made a comment about me and Chris, and that caused him to join in on the fun. We all started to laugh eventually, throwing jokes around harmlessly as we packed up our things and headed out along the train tracks again.

When Chris and I were alone again, walking along the endless stretch of railroad tracks for who knows how long, I didn't dare ask Chris how my head had magically made itself appear on my lap and the blanket around me, with his warm hand in my hair and the other on my back/waist, and Chris didn't say anything about it. I felt Chris's warm blue eyes stare at me almost all the time when I was walking along whatever path that was in front of us. My stomach twisted in an odd, warm way whenever we locked eyes or shared a smile, and I felt incredibly happy. I didn't know why I felt that way, but I guess a part of my brain understood why. Me and Chris… well, we never discussed what had happened that night when Chris was on watch, one on one, when we were twelve years old. Not even when we were thirteen years old. I think that both of us thought that it would've really been awkward.

Anyway, when the Cobras ambushed us at the final resting place of Ray Brower's body, and when Teddy and Vern ran off to protect themselves (those jerks), leaving me and Chris in the dust to "defend" (claim) Ray Bower's dead body alone, Ace called Chris a faggot. I saw an upset look cross his face, and that sent anger coursing through my veins. Nobody could make Chris sad and get away with it, not while I was right there. When Chris told him to "go home and fuck your mother some more", Ace's expression turned from a little annoyed to murderous. He pulled out the knife and said to Chris, "you're dead". Eyeball tried to stop him, but to no avail. That proclamation of Chris's death sent white hot fear and even more anger swirling through my bones. Everyone in Ace's rotten gang, well, they were distracted with Chris and Ace's little showdown, and so I quickly and silently grabbed the gun from Chris's pack, then silently clicked the safety off. I hadn't shot a gun in my entire life, but I knew how almost all of the parts of a gun like that worked. ( _My father taught Denny how to shoot a gun, and even though my father nor Denny hadn't brought me along, I snuck out of the house and followed them to a firing range, making sure to keep a safe distance away from them. I kept an eye on them while they didn't even know they were being followed by me. My father taught Denny (and me; unbeknownst to them), how to aim and fire a gun. The recoil, everything. That's how I was able to shoot the gun and not blow my own hand/foot off._ )

Anyway, Ace and his gang backed off really quick when I said that I'd just shoot Ace, their leader. I was relieved. Although, my hands were shaking badly as I put the gun down. When we got back to Castle Rock, and when me and Chris had walked back to his house, with the gun (and the safety on) still carefully wrapped up in his backpack under a blanket, I had made myself a promise that I would never pick up a gun again unless it was absolutely necessary.

"It's true." He murmured, pulling me out of my thoughts. He looked extremely sad, and I felt my heart ache in my chest. "I'm fucking stupid."

"Don't. Say. That." I hissed quietly. A sense of protectiveness and even more déjà vu washed over me. I didn't know what it was, but the thought of Chris being sad or hurt made me extremely protective. Is this what Denny felt like when he was still alive? Constantly worrying about me? Is this what Chris felt like whenever I showed up at his house, crying because of bullies, my neglectful parents, my brother's death, or the fact that people told me that I would never grow up to be as important, well-known or respected as Denny? That feeling sucked ass. It still does happen sometimes with my kid.

"Gordie, I am. You know that it's-"

"Stop saying that!" I shouted.

"Why?!" He demanded instantly. "Everyone knows it's true! Hell I'm sure you know that I'm a nothing, that I'm just a goddamned pile of shit with a fucked up family history!"

"No, Chris, I don't think that. God damn it, Chris, you're not a "lowlife Chambers kid". You're not stupid, either. If anything, you've got more actual freaking brains than anyone I know. Including Goddamned Teddy Duchamp, whose had the ability to absorb any kind of information and regurgitate it back to anyone and everyone no matter what since for-fucking-ever! And I do not think for one second that you're a nothing, or a pile of shit! You're everything I could possibly like in a friend!" I ranted. "And I know for a fact that you know that we've both got a seriously fucked up family history. Damn it, Chris, listen to me: your-"

"Gordie, you don't understand!" He snapped, cutting me off. "That stupid stereotype of my family is my entire fucking past, present and future in a damned nutshell! My family's stereotype will haunt me to my goddamned grave!" He yelled again, and he sounded on the edge of tears. "I hate my fucking life, I hate my goddamned father, and my mother, and I hate my stupid siblings most of the time, and I especially hate goddamned Eyeball! I want…" his voice cracked, and a rush of emotions flew across his tanned face, "I want to kill myself, damn it!" He screamed suddenly.

"Chris! No! Don't you say that!" I yelled, white hot panic filling my bones up. No, no! There's no way — no.

"Gordie, we shouldn't be hanging out anymore, man." Panic, sadness, and anger ate were all mashed up together in his voice. He was rambling on desperately; his thoughts were a mess, I could tell. It was so bad that poor Chris couldn't even speak properly, or give out any kind of reasoning whatsoever. His blue eyes were large and as round as saucers, and the normally calm dark, ocean blue of his eyes changed completely; it was like a storm at sea, and his eyes were the center of the storm. "I'm dragging you down!" He cried out desperately as an attempt to sway me from still trying to be friends with him. But there was no way in Hell that I was gonna give up, not by a long shot.

"I don't give a shit, even if that's true! You're my best friend! Fuck my grades, I'm happier to have you as a friend, Chris! I don't give a shit if you're dragging me down!"

"You should give a shit!" He screamed. "Your father is right when he says that I'm no good for you!"

"Fuck what my father says!" I yelled furiously. How dare my father put those thoughts into his head!

"I'm no good for you!" He repeated. "Hell I should just kill myself when I get back to my house."

"If that's true, then I'm no good for you, either!" I screamed, and I tried to hold back tears that threatened to fall from my eyes. "And you wanna know something, Chris?"

"What, Gordie?!" He yelled desperately.

"If you kill yourself-" I took a deep, shaky breath then swallowed hard to keep my voice from noticeably cracking, "-you'd better save me a spot in Heaven next to you, because damn it, if you kill yourself Chris, I won't be far behind!" I cried.

Chris looked shocked at this. "W-what? Gordie, no. You can't… you can't kill yourself. Fuck, Gordie-"

I powered on. "I'll go right ahead and do it, and don't think I won't. I'll slice myself up into ribbons and die of blood loss or load up a gun, put the damn thing to my head and pull the trigger."

Chris visibly cringed at this, like he just got shot in the leg. "Gordie-"

"I'll kill myself without a second thought," my voice rose, "because if it means I get to be in freaking Heaven next to my best friend in the whole wide world, with _you_ , I'll gladly kill my-fucking-self without hesitating for a damned second!" I snapped, on the verge of tears. I could feel a sob build in the back of my throat, but I shoved it back down, determined not to cry. Tears were about to leak out of my eyes. I could feel them, my eyes, burning. My vision was completely blurry from unshed hot, salty tears. Chris's image was distorted, and I couldn't really see all that well.

However, I could still see that Chris looked about a minute away from crying as well. And it really hurt to see that. "Gordie, man-"

I surged forward and wrapped my arms around his shoulders tightly, effectively stopping him from saying anything else. Then I did something completely out of my character, I buried my face in his shirt, then took a long, deep breath. A familiar comfort washed over me at his scent. I felt safe for the first time in a long time. I felt Chris's arms wrap around my shoulders tightly, and he rested his chin lightly on my head, rocking us back and forth a bit to calm ourselves down. One of his hands rested on my hip gently, and my heart rate increased slightly at this. I didn't know why. Friends… hold each other, right? Whenever they're upset, right? I convinced myself that it was normal for Chris's hand to be on my hip.

"Chris, Chris… oh, Chris…" I murmured thickly, and my voice was slightly muffled by the fabric of his shirt. Unfortunately, I started to really cry, like the pussy I was. The waterworks kept on coming, tears slipping down my cheeks and wetting his shirt.

Chris must have felt my tears wetting and staining his shirt, because he pulled back and he gently placed his hand that was on my hip on my cheek. "Gordie, I'm sorry for yelling."

"There's nothing to be sorry for, Chris." I murmured, hiccuping quietly, and sighed once his hand dropped from my cheek. "I was the one who k-kept pressuring you. It wasn't cool of me. Sorry, man." Panic rose up inside of me. "Please d-don't kill yourself, Chris." I sobbed. "If you die, I just… I won't - I…" I trailed off. I would have said that *I will stop eating all together and then kill myself to be with you*. But I didn't dare say that. Not in front of him.

Chris leaned forward and slipped his hand onto my cheek again, wiping away the tears that continued to spill out of my eyes. His palm was warm and soft, which made me calm down slightly. "Shh, shh, shh, Gordie, it's fine." He soothed. "Everything's fine. I won't. I won't do anything stupid. I promise." He whispered, voice thick with emotion.

I sobbed harshly, wrapping my arms around him tightly.

"Gordie, I should go." He said after a few minutes of silent, reassuring touches. "Get back home before my dad or Eyeball comes home." I felt him starting to pull back reluctantly, as if he did not want to leave my embrace. He sat up from my bed, and I quickly spurred myself into action.

"No!" I protested loudly, my mind hazy with sadness and desperation. "Stay. Stay stay stay stay stay." I chanted, trying to pull Chris back into my arms.

"Okay, okay." He murmured, sitting back down and letting me rest his head on his shoulder.

I sighed happily, my cheeks warming up slightly when he placed his hands on my lower back as a comforting gesture. I smiled, listening to Chris as he hummed a song under his breath.

"Gordie?" Chris asked suddenly, and his hands stopped their movements.

"Yeah?" I mumbled.

"Why the hell are you so goddamned thin?"

My mind exploded with pure panic. Fuck, how could I be so careless? _Shit shit shit shit._ Oh shit! "W-what? Chris, I-I've always been skinny." I stuttered out, my heart beating like as fast as a hummingbird's wings in my chest.

"Yeah, that is true..." Chris frowned, his pointer finger tracing the bumps of my spine. I tried to ignore how nice it felt. I knew he wasn't comforting me with the gesture, though. He was trying to figure something out. I inhaled slightly, then quietly exhaled. "But you've never been this skinny." He murmured.

"I've… I've been working out." I said weakly. Hey, it was the first thing that came to my mind other than "I've been starving myself." My voice was as dry as the Rossenberg's crops, and my tongue felt like a pound of lead or salt.

"Bullshit." He said, his eyes narrowing at me like he was some kind of cat and I was the poor, defenseless prey.

"Bull-true, Chris." I replied, but my shaking voice betrayed me.

"Gordie-" he tried to say something, but I wasn't having any of his shit right now.

"Drop it, asshat." I snapped suddenly, more defensive than anything else. "It's none of your motherfucking concern." I huffed. "And your concern, while flattering, isn't needed. I'm fine."

Chris glared at me, and his hands fell away from my back. I instantly missed the warmth. His eyes were no longer warm and comforting like they were a minute ago, they were icy cold. "Gordie-"

"I'm _fine_." I said, biting my lower lip harshly between my teeth.

"Fucking hell Gordie, you're not fine!" He exploded suddenly. "Not at all, man! This-" he motioned me in a vague gesture, but I knew that he was talking about my skinniness, "-isn't fine! Why the hell are you skinny?!"

I didn't answer. I physically couldn't, because of the lump that had formed in my throat. Besides, if I did I felt that I would have started crying. I shifted my eyes to the floor, my heart hammering away in my chest. My tongue felt like lead rolled up in hard-grained sandpaper. My whole body felt numb. My mind was dizzy with panic.

Chris let out a broken sound in the back of his throat before he dug his tan hands into his hair, and the expression on his face was desperate and heartbroken. "Please, Gordie." He murmured.

"I'm not talking about it!" I yelled defensively.

"Gordie." His voice cracked. "Please. I want to help you. You need to-"

"Fuck you, Chris!" I screamed, punching his chest with my pale, bony fist. "You don't get to tell me what to do! You're not my fucking father!"

"You mean I'm not your _goddamned deadbeat_ father!" He shouted, and all of the sadness and desperation was gone from his voice in an instant. "I wish to hell I was your dad, because I know for a fact that I wouldn't neglect you like your own damn father does! I wouldn't ignore you or make shitty, overused excuses as to why I can't do this or that with you, I'd actually do the things you'd ask me to do. If I was your father, I'd actually make sure I'm putting your own damn happiness before my own goddamned happiness!"

"Shut up!" I screamed at him, anger exploding through my veins. "Shut up, you fucking asshole! You don't get to talk about my father like that!" ( _In all honesty, I was kind of glad that he said that_.)

"Why don't you fucking make me stop?" He snapped.

"Shut up! And that's rich, coming from you! At least my father doesn't fucking _abuse_ me every night!"

I saw Chris cringe. I had hit a nerve, crossed a dangerous line. "Shut you damned mouth, asshole!" He snapped, his hands curling up into fists.

"Why?! Everyone knows it's true that you dad abuses you and your other siblings! It's not a secret!"

"Fuck you, corpse breath!" He shouted.

I rolled my eyes but kept quiet. The silence was thick and heavy around us. We sat in tense silence, looking away from each other. I looked out my window and Chris looked at my bedroom wall behind me. He's pissed, I'm pissed, it all sucked.

"Your father emotionally abuses you. That's worse, isn't it?"

"No." I gritted out.

We lapsed into angry, awkward silence again. Chris broke the silence after a long while of it. "Damn it, Gordie, just LISTEN to me-" he shouted.

"No!" I yelled again, unwanted tears suddenly burning in my eyes yet again. I didn't even know why I had those tears in the first place. I just wanted them gone and Chris's concerned looks out of my house. "Get out!" I shouted suddenly, the anger swirling in my body getting worse, harder to control.

He blinked, looking shocked, confused. "What?"

"You heard me, you idiot! Get out of my damned house!" I punched his chest with my pale, bony hand again, hot salty tears finally slipping down my cheeks.

Chris's angry expression fell, replaced with a worried, upset, guilt ridden one. He sighed, and he leaned over and cupped my cheeks carefully, wiping away the tears that dripped down my cheeks. Sobs racked my whole body, making me feel weak. I was angry, but I wasn't angry at him, for something he'd said. It was because I didn't want to feel his kind, reassuring touches. They made me feel like I was a wounded animal who he had to mercy kill. I felt weak under his reassuring touches, and I wanted them goddamned gone, even if I never wanted them to move away from my back. God, what was going on with me? I was — I was confused. Yeah, yeah, I was just confused, and… and suddenly craving human touch. But then I said: "I want you out, Chris. Now." Which was counterproductive to the fact that I was craving human touch, and the fact that he would leave on my broken command would be taking human interaction away from me. I ignored it.

I hiccuped, glaring at him through the tears pooling in my eyes. Now, suddenly I was repulsed by the thought of human interaction. I wanted him gone as soon as freaking possible. "N-now, damn it." My voice cracked slightly on the last word.

"Gordie…" he breathed. His voice was scratchy and thick (yet somehow still so soft) with emotion.

"I hate you." I blurted out, the tears replaced by anger again. God, I was acting like a hormonal teenage girl. "I hate your guts so fucking much, Chris!" I screamed.

Chris looked close to tears. "Y-y-you don't… you don't mean that, right?" His breathing stuttered harshly, which was completely unnatural of him. I didn't understand why at the time, but I know now the fact that his best friend of eight years said that he hated him did some damage to him. Words can do a lot of damage when used to cause pain, I should know. I was on the receiving end of so many hateful comments, I'd be able to write a seven paged essay on them. I know for a fact that it wouldn't even be a full proper essay, it'd just start with a mean word on one page and then it'd turn into a single word-for-word, a-period-after-each-word-only essay.

"I do!" I screamed again. "I hate you, Chris! And I want you out of my house! Go before I make you, you shit-head!" My screaming turned into another round of pathetic loud sobbing. The anger disappearing from my body, I curled up into a ball on my bed, balancing my chin on my shins, trying desperately to stop the waterworks, but I couldn't. I whimpered, pulling at my hair harshly to have something to ground myself to reality to. "I hate you I hate you I hate you." I chanted quietly, like it was a prayer.

Suddenly I felt my bed dip, and then I felt warm hands rubbing my back. "Shh… shh… shh…" Chris murmured. I moaned like a badly wounded animal, (hopefully) subtly leaning into his embrace.

"Chris…" I sniffled, "I… God… I… I'm sorry." ( _How the hell did I go from yelling at him to apologizing to him that quickly? Even today, I still don't know that answer. My behavior back then baffles me._ )

"I know, Gordie. I know. Do you still want me to leave?"

I nodded. "Y-yeah." My voice cracked again. "Leave."

Chris nodded, and I felt my bed groan a bit as his weight left it. "Okay." He said softly. "Um, goodbye, Gordie." He shrugged on his flannel again, then played with the ends of his shirt, avoiding my eyes.

I sniffled quietly, wiping the tears from my cheeks. "Goodbye, Christopher." I said shortly, swallowing hard to get past the lump in my throat.

Without another word, Chris walked over to my window, opened it, and hopped over to my tree. He balanced himself on the sturdy branch, and then, turning back to the open window, his tan hands gripped the edges of my white painted bedroom window, he pulled it down. It hit my windowsill with a soft, almost completely silent thump.

( _After our fight, we didn't talk to each other for eleven whole weeks. In that extremely lonely time, I thought about a lot of things. I thought about how I wished that I could stopped myself from saying those things to him._

 _I didn't try to contact Chris in that time. I busied myself with other things, like reading, homework, and reconnecting with some of my other old friends._

 _…I starved myself even more. I was in agony, but refused to admit it._ )


	2. Chapter 2: The Make-Up & School

**Disclaimer: I do not own the movie Stand By Me or any of its characters. I only own my OC's and whatever else you don't recognize.**

 **Finally, I apologize in advance if there are any spelling, grammar, punctuation, sentence structure, etcetera - mistakes. I do not have a Beta reader, so all mistakes are mine.**

 **Enjoy chapter two of Sink or Swim.**

 **XXX**

 **Chapter Two: The Make-Up And School**

 **XXX**

"Hey you guys?"

"What?" We all chorused, glancing up from our card game.

"I bet I could fit this whole hot dog in my mouth, _and_ eat it in one bite."

"Vern, for the last time, there's no way on this freaking green earth that you can fit that whole hot dog in your mouth and eat it in one gigantic bite." I said in disbelief, watching my friend as he stared down at the food item on the plate almost challengingly.

We were all gathered around in our treehouse, sitting in the same spots we were in when Vern had first asked us if we "wanted to go see a dead body", which started the whole crazy adventure, where me and Vern almost died on the train tracks. Me and Chris sat next to each other, and the radio was playing a catchy tune in the background. This time around we were playing cards and, like usual, we talking like a bunch of idiots with their heads up their butts and just hanging out again, like old times. Our fathers and mothers (well, mine and Vern's fathers and Teddy's mother, we didn't even bother asking Chris's father or mother, mainly because the former intimidated the shit out of us, and the latter was almost never home) made the treehouse bigger to accommodate us, the "four strong growing boys", as Teddy's mother had once put it.

Vern's dark green eyes flickered up from the plate to me. "You saying I can't do it, LaChance?" He asked in a challenging tone.

While me and Chris were "fighting", me and Chris somehow managed to reconnect with our old, former (although I guess it wasn't former anymore when we reconnected with them) best friends friends Vern Tessio and Teddy Duchamp. It was like we had never drifted apart in the first place. There wasn't any awkwardness between us, which was a miracle in itself. When all of us started to become friends again, I thought that there was gonna be awkwardness, that we'd have to wait days, weeks, or even months for the awkwardness to clear up. Imagine my shock when we all hit it off again.

At the time of me and Chris reconnecting with Teddy and Vern, Vern was fifteen years old, like the rest of us were. He was in tenth grade, too. He had grown a lot in height, he shot up to 6'4", shocking everyone, and he had lost virtually all of his baby fat due to the fact that he had been working out a lot. I always saw him going on long runs through town, or doing sit ups and jumping jacks in the gymnasium at our school, or lifting heavy objects and throwing them or casually bench pressing weights to get arm strength, or lifting up some random cinder blocks that were laying around; the whole shebang. When Vern and I became closer as friends again, I actually accompanied him on his runs through town whenever I could, or whenever it was not raining too badly. A light sprinkle was good with me, but even though we lived in the South, it rarely ever rained hard. But when it did rain hard, it was occasionally like a tsunami had hit the south.

Occasionally, Chris and Teddy came for runs too (well, Chris had to sneak out of his house sometimes to avoid his father, so he was a little late than me). If by some miracle the four of us managed to cross paths - not that it wasn't _that_ uncommon; Castle Rock is a small town - the four of us would always go for amazingly, fantastically tasting burgers at a local diner after and talk about anything we had our minds on that day. Vern had good sized muscles - but not enough to get people wondering if he was on steroids - from being the star quarterback on our school's football team, the Fighting Red Castle Rockies. ( _God, I hated our football team name with a passion. It was a stupid name, and it was kind of a mouthful. Vern hated it too, and he was_ on _the football team for God's sake, being the quarterback and all. I don't hate that football team name anymore_.) Me and my friends would always make fun of our various schools' sports team names, coming up with vulgar phrases in place of the team, or making fun of our own damned mascot.

Anyway, Vern's blonde hair was still cut the exact same way when we were twelve, but it was a few shades lighter than it was back when we were twelve years old, mainly due to the hot sun and summer months in Oregon. His voice had gotten a lot deeper, too. Well, it didn't take a genius to figure that out. What with puberty and all. His face had sculpted out, too. He even had a jawline.

Teddy Duchamp had grown up, both in physically and in maturity. He was fifteen years old, like the rest of us (shocker there) and in tenth grade. His dark brown hair, which was styled in a fringe or he just left it down when we were younger, was now styled up into a dark quiff more often than not. He personally decided it was about time that he got rid of his rectangular, black, thick-rimmed glasses. He dumped the glasses after he proclaimed that he "didn't want his glasses in the way and obscure his vision, in case he had to see something from for away, like a bullet, a land mine, or a Vietnamese tank" — those were his exact words, not mine. I didn't want to ruin this batshit crazy idea that he had planted so firmly in his own damned head, that he wouldn't be fast enough to dodge a freaking bullet or run from a tank without his glasses. Even with his glasses I knew he couldn't do it. It was like that time when we were twelve and Teddy stayed on the train tracks where he stupidly thought that he could dodge a train that was coming towards him. Chris had to save him, and then he started yelling at him.

( _Even to this day, I think he'd absolutely shit his pants as soon as the helicopter took off, or if the boat sailed off from the harbor, jump out of it, and swim - or haul ass - back to the safety of good old American land_.)

Anyway, Teddy was the same height as me, but he always had several pounds on me. He did when we were twelve, too. He had six more pounds on me when we were twelve years old. Now he weighed thirteen more pounds than I did, to be exact. Teddy had good sized muscles from working out whenever he could, proclaiming that "he didn't want those motherfucking Vietnamese to beat him up" — again, those were his exact words, not mine — when he got to the damned war, despite the fact that he wasn't old enough to actually enlist or be drafted in the war at the time, being only fifteen years old. However, me and Chris speculated that Teddy just didn't want to get beat up by the bullies anymore.

I reached over and punched Vern's shoulder lightly. "I am, you farthead." Okay, so maybe that wasn't my best insult ever, but I wasn't gonna try and think of another one. It was too hot for that. I turned my attention to the brown haired boy sitting next to me. "What do you think, Teddy?"

"What, you want me to bet money if he can do it or something?" Said boy asked in a snarky tone, his dark chocolate brown eyes flickering up from the deck of cards he was shuffling.

"No." I said, shaking my head. I watched as he handed out cards to Chris and Vern, then took them when he handed them to me. I had a couple of goods cards. "Just answer my question, you dingleberry. Do you think he can do it or not?"

"Yeah. I think so." Teddy said.

"You think so or you know so?" Chris challenged.

"I said I _know_ so." Teddy snapped irritably.

"You didn't before." I pointed out in a smart aleck tone. "You said you think so a few minutes ago, and now you just said you know so. Make up your damned mind, Teddy." I smirked.

"Shut up, all of you." Vern snapped, picking up the hotdog and taking a bite out of it.

Teddy huffed loudly. "Yeah, shut up, Gordie."

"Make me, Du _chump_." I sneered.

"Fuck you, Gordie." Teddy snapped, pushing my shoulder, but there was humor dancing around in his voice.

I shrugged my shoulders casually. "Okay. Name your time and place, Teddy. I'll get my fat one out as you get down on your knees and shove it down your hot, needy throat." I said casually, like I was discussing what classes and teachers I want for school next year.

"Ugh, ew, no." Teddy grunted, his face twisted up in a disgusted expression. Teddy wasn't gay, not by a long shot. He had a girlfriend. "And in your dreams, you cock-knocker."

Everyone except for Chris laughed, who was silently thumbing through one of Eyeball's old English reading books, with his own pile of cards on the table flipped onto their red backs, so we couldn't see what cards he had. He hadn't said anything in a while. In fact, he looked a little distant. He was looking like that more often than not those past couple of days, along with extremely sad more often than not too. He would only say a few words here and there whenever we talked to him, only making a quick witted joke here and there. ( _I knew deep down that his weird, slightly alarming behavior was bothering the hell out of me, but I had too much pride in me at that time to let myself admit that I was worried_.)

"Hey, Chris, you okay?" Vern asked, glancing over at the blond teen.

It took him a solid nine seconds of long silence to answer. "What?" He didn't look up from the page he was reading. "Yeah. I'm fine, Vern." He said, nodding his head automatically. "Alright, go ahead and get the game started, Teddy." He huffed out a breath, then bookmarked the page he was on and shut the book, still only semi paying attention. He put the book down next to him.

Teddy nodded and did just that.

I knew for a fact that Chris wasn't fine, not at all. If his distant eyes and odd quiet behavior were anything to go by. I didn't say anything, though, and I quickly busied myself by taking a swing of my icy cold Coca-Cola.

 **XXX**

Teddy poured a generous amount of salt on his fries before he took a big bite out of his freshly-delivered piping hot cheeseburger. "God, I love cheeseburgers and French fries." He mumbled through the mouthful of the fresh, hot, juicy burger.

We had just come from a long, casual walk around town from end to end, and we were starving to death (me especially) from wasting so much energy talking, walking, and laughing, and sweating due to the relentless heat. We decided to head over to Fire Eyed Ruth's Diner for the best burgers in town, a couple of icy cold sodas, and what I thought were the best French fries I had ever eaten. ( _I still think that, even to this day_.) The seats were a comfortable but used. They were leather seats, and a light blue color. The tables were your generic diner polished hardwood tables. Chris and Teddy sat on one side of the generic diner table, while on the other hand, Vern and I sat on the other side of the table. Vern and Teddy were facing each other, while myself and Chris were facing each other on opposite sides of the table. Me and Chris didn't look each other directly in the eyes. We barely even spoke to one another.

"Really, now?" Chris asked, pulling me out of my thoughts. "I never would have guessed that you like it." Vern was done with half of his burger already, and we'd gotten our food four minutes ago from a young, preppy, pretty bright red-headed waitress with freckles dotting her cheeks and dark blue eyes. She said her name was Suzannah, who then cheerfully told us that her nickname was "Honey Pie". We called her by her nickname, because she told us that we could. Teddy instantly called dibs on "the hot lovely lady" (his words, not mine) despite the fact that she was older than him by at least six years, and that he already had a girlfriend. Teddy ate more than a quarter of his first half of burger. I was getting down to the last couple of bites on my first half of my cheeseburger. "I never would have guessed." Chris continued, his voice dripping with sarcasm.

I snickered. "That's not the only thing he likes."

Chris smirked at that. I was surprised at that. I had expected an eye roll or a muttered "yeah", at best.

Teddy rolled his eyes. "Oh, shut up, LaChance." Teddy snapped, but there was no heat behind his words.

I laughed lightly, taking a sip of my chocolate milkshake before picking up a salt-soaked, fresh, hot French fry from my plate and popping it into my mouth. I tried not to wince as said fry burnt the very back of my throat. After starving myself for so damn long, I decided to treat myself. I know that sounds counterproductive to the fact that I was on my way to starving myself (and it was _extremely_ counterproductive), but I couldn't help myself. I also couldn't make my friends or family any more suspicious than they already were. I was being counterproductive, and I didn't like it that much. But I had to keep up appearances, even though I doing the opposite of what I wanted to do. And that was starve myself.

"Ugh." Vern said, looking over at me with his face twisted up into an ugly grimace. "How in the hell can you eat that salt-soaked fry, LaChance? That's like giving yourself a Charlie horse or running into a wall."

Chris frowned. "How the hell does that make sense?"

"…It doesn't." Vern admitted, taking another bite of his burger.

"How the hell can you not eat a salt-soaked fry like this?" I said once I was done chewing. "It's so good."

"You'll give yourself high cholesterol, Gordie." Teddy said, taking a sip of his water. "Possibly a heart attack when you're older."

I rolled my eyes. "Oh shut it, you fat, bird-faced jackass." Okay, maybe that was a little mean, but we all knew that I didn't mean it like that. It was in more of a joking way. "I don't care about my cholesterol, I care about salt-soaked, greasy French fries." I popped the one that I held in my hand into my mouth before making a point to steal a fistful of fries from Teddy's plate, dump a bunch of salt onto the steaming hot fries, too much to be considered normal, and shove about six fries into my mouth and chew very obnoxiously, all the while staring at Teddy with mock innocent brown eyes.

"You're disgusting." Teddy commented, then made a face like he just sucked on a really sour lemon. "Jackass."

I rolled my eyes and swallowed the salty fries. Mmm. Then I glanced over at Vern, who busied himself by dipping a lesser-salted fry into his half-empty strawberry milkshake. He ate the cherry a long time ago. Whipped cream was gone too. "God, I hate strawberry milkshakes." I said in a disgusted voice, picking up my burger and biting into it. "Those things are so goddamned nasty. I don't even know how you like that."

"Screw off, you jerk face. Don't insult my milkshake choices." He snapped, popping the light bubblegum pink, strawberry milkshake dripping fry into his mouth. "How the hell can you like salt-soaked French fries, but not strawberry milkshakes and French fries?" He asked, taking a big bite of his burger.

Damn. I didn't have an answer for him. "I don't know, I just do." I said lamely after I finished another bite.

"Wow Gordie." Vern said, sarcasm dripping from his voice. "That was such a great answer."

"Shut up, Vern." Teddy snapped, taking a bite of burger. After he was done chewing, Teddy leaned over and punched Vern's arm twice, a little bit hard.

I laughed when Vern glared darkly at him, then noticed that Chris was unnaturally silent. He might of well not have been there. "Dude?" I asked, taking a sip of my milkshake. He had yet to wolf down his food like he usually did when we came here for lunch. If I'm honest, it was worrying me; his silent, strange behavior, his distant eyes, distracted face, and the lack of eating. It reminded me of _me_ , and that wasn't a good thing, not in my book.

"Yeah?" He asked distractedly. He got a burger and fries like the rest of us, and for a drink he got ice cold Coca-Cola.

I popped a large handful of fries into my mouth, then swallowed. "Are you gonna eat your food? Drink anything?" I took another bite of my burger.

"I will." He said, nodding as he finally took a small sip of his drink. It was just to make me happy, I'm sure of it.

I nodded, but I was extremely concerned. He wasn't acting like himself. I kicked Chris's foot under the table to get his attention, frowning. "You good?"

"Yeah." He murmured, only now just picking at his French fries. They must've gotten cold by then, surely.

I just nodded again, feeling extremely awkward. "Uh, alright." I muttered.

"So, Vern, how's that girlfriend of yours?" Teddy asked randomly, throwing a crispy small fry at him. Vern caught it in his mouth easily and chewed on it. I snuck a glance over at Chris. Chris looked really glad for the sudden change of subject.

"Who, Kristina? Yeah, she's good." Vern mumbled after a moment, a small blush rising to his cheeks as he popped a larger French fry into his mouth. Ah, Vern's funny, long, wavy haired brunette, team-captain-of-the-cheerleaders body, sun-kissed tanned skin, dark brown eyed girlfriend of nearly seven months, Kristina Vandenberg. She's in the year above us - she's in eleventh grade. She's nice enough, but if somebody were to bully Vern - ( _which nobody could understand; as he was the_ star quarterback _of our high school football team_ ); _I always thought that it was because of Vern's past, when he was an heavyset, kind-of-socially-awkward and loud-mouthed kid with a strange haircut; and a dick of an older brother named Billy and two younger siblings; and only three good friends who were also coincidentally "messed up" in some way shape or form_ ) she'd kick their ass. She scared everyone within fifty feet of her general vicinity when she turned from her "nice and innocent" mode, into her "overprotective girlfriend" mode, including occasionally me, Teddy, Chris and sometimes Vern, but he was more used to it than the rest of us. Kristina's still alive today.

"Have you got to second base yet with her?" Teddy pressed, smirking like the annoying smartass he was.

Vern's face twisted up comically. "Aw, ew, you pervert. I could ask the same with you and Abigail." He snapped, pointing an accusing finger at him.

"Hey, I'll have you know that I have gotten to second base with Abigail." He stated proudly. Ah yes — Abigail Schaefer, Teddy's girlfriend of nearly five months. When she was my age, she had a firm tan body, and she had beautiful long, pin-straight bright blonde hair, and warm brown doe eyes. She was the co-captain of the cheerleaders, and the champion of the high school spelling bee in the entire state of Oregon. Nice girl, a little loud, but nice. Abigail was able to throw punches and kicks around like a badass, and she can intimidate even the toughest of bullies into saying sorry. Which really came in handy with me and my friend's bullies. Like Kristina, she's still alive. Kristina and Abigail are still the best of friends. They were each other's maids of honor at their weddings. Me, Kristina, and Abigail still talk often.

Vern rose his eyebrow. "Oh really?"

"Yeah, Tessio." Teddy snapped irritably, shoving a few fries into his mouth, glaring at him.

"Your hands are so tiny and your fingers are so clumsy, I'm sure you wouldn't have been able to get her bra clasp undone even if you tried." Vern challenged, eyes narrowed.

Teddy glared at him, and the two launched into an petty argument about their girlfriends while trying to defend their masculinity at the same time. They were mainly doing the second option than actually defending their girlfriends.

I rolled my eyes at their pointless antics, turning my attention to Chris. "Thank God we don't have girlfriends, right Chris?" I mentioned.

"Yeah." He mumbled, still not meeting my eyes directly. He picked up a fry and popped it into his mouth. "Right."

I nodded and let the short conversation drop before picking at my fries absently, occasionally making a couple of offhanded comments to Vern and Teddy amidst their argument. Chris did, too, but not as much as I did.

Me and Chris didn't talk to each other directly for the rest of the meal.

 **XXX**

It was two weeks later after our meal at Fire Eyed Ruth's Diner, a hot Thursday afternoon, and Chris and I still hadn't made up; it was officially eleven weeks ago that Chris and I had fought in my room and refused to speak to each other whenever we were alone together. If I'm being honest, at that time I couldn't completely remember why we fought. I just knew that we did, and I really, really missed my best friend.

Last night (luckily for me), I had somehow managed to convince Chris on the telephone to come to the treehouse and try and work out our differences. I hadn't expected him to say yes, but he did say yes after a minute of silence. I was elated.

I sighed heavily, tracing my hands along the rough, ugly white paint-chipped outside wall of Chris's house. I was waiting for him near his bedroom window, to come outside so we could go hang out in the treehouse and talk, one on one. Man to man. Or something like that. My head snapped up when I heard the slightly creaky front door to his house close. He actually showed up, which honestly surprised me.

"Hey Chris!" I shouted, a little louder than necessary. I sprinted over to Chris, smiling at him. He was wearing a faded light blue t-shirt and black shorts, with black shoes and white socks, and a dark red Yankee's baseball cap turned backwards on his head.

"Hi, Gordie." He smiled a bit, but it didn't quite reach his eyes. I wondered why for a minute, then decided that it wasn't worth it. "You ready to go?"

I nodded. "Yep." He and I walked down his long driveway in awkward silence. We walked past the rows of nearly identical, cookie cutter houses.

"So… Chris…" I mumbled awkwardly. "How's… how's school going?"

"School? Um, classes aren't really going that good, especially in stupid Algebra class." He sighed, and stayed silent until we entered a long stretch of town. "Although," he continued, "my bitch of a math teacher Mrs. Teuton said that if I don't get a seventy-four on my next test, I'd fail math class this quarter. I fucking hate second quarter, it can go rot in a ditch." He mumbled, and we listened to the rumble and soft whirling's of the engines of passing cars.

"Do you want me to help you? I have a ninety in math." I said as we passed by a family owned sweet's shop.

"Um, if you don't mind…" Chris trailed off, looking really sheepish.

"No, I don't mind. You need a seventy-four on the test, right?"

"Yeah. I do." He said, looking both ways for cars or people on bikes; the latter of which mostly materialize out of nowhere - it's happened more than once within our group.

It happened to me sometimes. I'd come out on the other side okay, with only a few bumps. But usually, Teddy or Vern would be the victims of these kinds of accidental… accidents. Teddy or Vern would be walking across the street, not paying attention as per usual, before CRASH!, they'd be run over by a biker on his bike or bumped in the side with somebody's car (the times I saw my friends get "bumped" by a car, the car's didn't give them any major injuries, just a few bumps and bruises, a whole lot of anger and annoyance.) I saw it happen with Vern one time; he got plowed by a biker. It looked painful for Vern, the person who was on the bike, _and_ the bike. The biker cursed a painful death on Vern's mother while the back wheel of the bike turned in a circle a hundred times, making quiet wheel-turning noises as it did.

Chris and I winced in sympathy for our friend as Vern groaned loudly in pain, still dazed. On the other hand, Teddy threw his head back and laughed his goddamned ass off in the background, sounding like a stupid-ass donkey that just had a freak accident involving a conveyer belt, a vat of boiling hot oil, and a goddamned meat grinder, not even bothering to walk over and help up poor Vern, who was still on the ground with the breath knocked out of him.

However, Chris helped up the biker and stood his bike up and wheeled it over to him, while I helped up Vern. Anyway, it was clear with only one car that wouldn't pass us for a few more seconds, so we crossed the road safely.

"Gordie?" Chris asked, pulling me out of my thoughts. "C'mon man, you've been staring off into the distance for ages now like my goddamned senile Grandma Roseanne did when she was still alive." He commented. I remember her. She was still alive when I was born, and I knew her for five years of my life. She used to pinch my cheeks and call me honey and fatten me up with homemade sweets like brownies and cookies, like all Grandmother's did. I miss her. "You gonna help me or not?" I could hear his sharp intake of breath, even if it was the quietest and slightest intake. If I wasn't paying attention, I wouldn't have heard it. He expected me to say no.

I ran my hand through my hair. "I'll help you out."

"Really?"

I nodded. "Yeah, really."

He smiled widely, obviously relieved. "Thanks, Gordie."

"You're welcome, Chris." I smiled.

We walked in silence for a long time until we got to our destination, the treehouse. Running my hand through my brown hair, I sighed heavily, climbing up the wooden ladder. I pushed the wooden panel to the treehouse up so I could enter. It hit the carpet with a soft thump. Climbing up the last two rungs on the latter, I shimmied through the opening, then crawled over near the window and sat down on the comfortable pillow that I had set there. Chris's head popped up and he crawled toward the spot nearest the entrance. My guess was that in case things got really ugly between us, he'd be able to make a hasty escape and go back home. Smart thinking.

I reached into a small wooden drawer near me and grabbed an opened pack of cigarettes from Vern's little stash, knowing that he wouldn't miss one or two cigarettes. I'm not a heavy smoker, anyway, so I'd only have one and put it back. Chris would maybe have two, that is if he didn't bring his own pack.

Almost as if reading my mind, Chris pulled out an already open cigarette pack from his back pocket and pulled a cigarette out. "Got a lighter?" He asked me. "I left mine on my desk in my room." He said, almost apologetically.

I rummaged through Vern's stash and found a lighter that would suffice, tossing it to him. He caught it. "Thanks."

"Welcome."

Chris lit up his cigarette. We sat in thick awkward silence, blowing out puffs of smoke from our cigarettes occasionally, getting lost in our own thoughts. We sat like that for a very, very long time, before Chris spoke up:

"So, what did you want to talk about, Gordie?"

I had almost forgotten why I wanted to talk to him. I licked my lips. "Us."

Chris rose his eyebrow. "Us? What do you mean by us?"

"This… awkwardness between us." I waved my hand through the air as if that would clear up any confusion. "You know what I mean?"

"Yeah, I do." He said. "You want to talk about fact that we haven't properly spoken to each other in, like what, ten weeks?"

"Eleven." I corrected absentmindedly, running my hand through my hair.

Chris nodded and put his cigarette to his lips. He took a long drag before pulling the cigarette away from his lips and exhaling slowly, away from my face. "Someone's been keeping tabs." He said in a teasing voice, then smirked.

"Yeah yeah, I know." I dismissed it, taking a long drag before exhaling. "I just… I miss you."

Chris's eyes went soft. "I miss you too, buddy." His voice was as soft as it could be, as I had ever heard it go. It kind of surprised me. "I'm sorry. I shouldn't have said what I said."

"Me too. I regret everything, I wish I had never said any of that stuff. Guilt totally ate away at me for a long time." I admitted. It did, and really sucked, to say the least.

"Yeah. Me too. I guess that's why I can't really focus on my schoolwork. Must be… that, well, that the guilt's been eating away at me." He sighed, taking a drag from the cigarette looking into my eyes. I could see that they were filled with sadness and regret. I found that I wanted both negative emotions gone from his eyes completely as quickly as possible.

"Is that why you're failing math?" I asked curiously.

Chris avoided my eyes, suddenly becoming more interested in hem of his shirt than me. "Yeah." He mumbled. "That's why."

I swallowed hard, feeling my heart do that same weird flip in my chest again. "That offer to help you is still going strong, you know. You said yes. I'll still help you."

"Thank you, Gordie." He said quietly.

I took a drag from my cigarette, tilting my head up at the wooden ceiling before letting the smoke drift out of my mouth. "Chris?"

"Yeah, Gordie?" He asked, leaning back in his chair. His ocean blue eyes were still trained on his shirt.

"Can… can we be friends again?" I asked, almost timidly. A small part of me expected him to say no, but the largest part of me expected him to say yes.

Chris's eyes lifted from his shirt to me. They were bright again. There weren't any negative emotions swimming around in them, which made me glad. "Yeah, yeah I'd like that." He said with happiness and excitement, nodding and smiling goofily, then put the cigarette up to his lips again, then exhaled quickly.

I smiled wider. "Good."

Chris and I exchanged looks and laughed easily with each other. I felt all of the tension and sadness melt away from my body, and it was like I physically felt all of the awkwardness surrounding us break up and scatter like particles of dust around us. I had my best friend back, and to me that was the most important thing in the entire world.

 **XXX**

It was another sweltering hot Monday morning - no surprise there - three weeks after Chris and I became best friends again, and I was brushing my teeth as per usual in my bathroom, getting ready for my own personal hell, also known as high school. I quickly ran a cold wet comb through my hair, then noticed a few loose strands poking out and tucked them back into place, staring at myself in the bathroom mirror with the extremely bright light to make sure that I looked decent enough to go to school. I was dressed in a simple white t-shirt and faded blue shorts that had a small hole near the cuffs of the pants, with white socks and my trusty pair of blue shoes. Vern and Teddy both telephoned me late last night as I was getting ready for bed. They said that they'd meet me by Mr. Minkus's flower shop, which was three blocks away from my house and six blocks away from the bus stop. I said that I'd be able to swing by Chris's house and get him on the way and meet up with them there, which they said was fine.

I walked out of my bathroom, glancing over at Denny's closed bedroom door. A light sigh escaped my lips, and I cringed as a flare of memories swelled up inside of my brain, hitting me with memories of my happy brother. I hadn't opened it in a couple of months, his bedroom door, I mean. I only took that Yankee's baseball cap out of room. I never took something else out of there, because it was rude and I didn't want anything else to get stolen by anyone. But Chris's stupid older brother Eyeball stole my brother's baseball cap, which was one of the only things that I used to remember him by. I was angry at them, at Ace for threatening to burn Chris, at Eyeball for being the douchebag he was. But other than that, I hadn't bothered to open up his room. Too many memories of Denny, of when my life was semi-okay. My parents had always neglected me from when I was born to, well, just recently. My mother more so than my father, but still they paid attention to me a little bit more now. Well, if you can accurately call it "giving me more attention". The fact that I categorize my mother constantly pleading for me to eat or drink water (and rarely anything else), and my father never speaking to me unless it was to either yell at me for something that I didn't do or whatever, or ask (more like demand) if I could get him something edible or drinkable from the fridge for him as any form of "attention" is actually kind of depressing. Their conversations were all about Denny, Denny, Denny, even after he died and I was once again the invisible, ignored child, even more so than when Denny was alive. I know that sounds bad ( _and talking shit about dead people isn't cool; especially if one of those "dead people" just so happens to be your deceased older brother_ ), but I don't mean to make it sound that way.

I walked downstairs, grabbing an apple from the kitchen. My father was sitting at the kitchen table, reading the daily newspaper. My mother was washing up a couple of glasses, hair tied up into a ponytail.

"Morning." I said.

My father's eyes stayed on fixated on the paper as he grunted out a sound that resembled a bear. He said an almost robotic hello, turning the page. My mother didn't turn away from what she was doing, but she quickly said good morning in a detached voice that made me wince.

"I'm off to Chris's house." I stated awkwardly, feeling a lump rise in my throat for no reason. Why would something like that even happen? "Then I'm going to school."

"Okay." My mother and father chorused, not looking up from their activities. My fingernails dug into the skin of the apple lightly in order to be a large handhold to keeping my sanity. Due to the fact that my parents ignored me all the time, I found myself wanting to either punch them, yell at them, tell them to fuck off/screw off, or admittedly cry. But I didn't. I just nodded my head, grabbed my book bag that was on the floor near the table, and walked out of the house, munching on the apple to distract myself.

I walked along the road, towards Chris's house. The sun was hot, shining down directly on my back. There wasn't a cloud in the blue sky. I munched on my apple, occasionally saying hello to people who passed by me in their cars or along the sidewalk. Once I got to Chris's house, I knocked on the front door a couple of times, waiting for my friend to appear, munching on my apple to keep my mouth busy. After about fifteen minutes of waiting with no answer from Chris, I got really concerned. Just as I was about to push open the door, the door opened, and Chris was standing in the middle of the doorway with a smile on his face.

"Hey."

I swallowed the bit of apple I was eating, licking my lips. "Hi, Chris." I said, taking in his appearance. He was wearing a clean white short sleeved shirt and faded blue jeans, with a pair of his white Allstar's and dark blue socks. His light blond hair was up in a neatly styled quiff. His blue eyes looked a few shades lighter in the warm sunlight. His dark blue book bag was slung over his shoulder. He looked… happy.

"You ready for school?" He asked.

"No." I laughed. "You?"

He smirked. "Abso-fucking-lutely," I rose my eyebrow at that, "…not."

I smirked. "Then we're on the same page. C'mon, Teddy and Vern are waiting for us, so we'd better get going."

"Sounds good." He said, and we walked towards the flower shop, talking until I stopped suddenly. "Where're your siblings?"

"Veronica, Brandon, Tyler, Julia and Carl left for school earlier. Eyeball was gone when I woke up, and I was the first one awake. Wait, technically, doesn't that mean I was the second one awake?"

"Really? That doesn't happen often. And I think it does." I commented, because it's true. Chris was a night owl, and he always went to bed at around two in the morning. On the weekends, he'd pull all-nighters more often than not. He'd always wake up late on weekends, occasionally waking up at eleven in the morning, but mainly at nine in the morning. His sleep schedule was messed up, let me tell you. "You're usually the last one up in your family, besides your old man. You probably don't wanna get up though, because I can bet that you're constantly dreaming about that Christian girl's naked breasts." I teased, knowing what I said wasn't true in the slightest. "What's her name, Indra Something?" I asked, feigning confusion, topping it all off by furrowing my eyebrows.

"Fitzgerald. Indra Fitzgerald." Chris corrected absently, shifting his backpack on his shoulder. "And shut your mouth." He reached over and punched my shoulder. "I don't dream about her breasts."

"Really now?" I drawled out unbelievingly, raising my eyebrow, a smirk on my lips as I rubbed my shoulder. I took another bite of apple, chewing on it loudly.

"Yeah, really." He huffed. "I don't dream of that kinda shit. And why're you chewing like a damned cow?"

I swallowed down the bite before I laughed again. "Okay, okay. Whatever you say. And I'm chewing like that because I feel like it. I can do whatever I damned well please, Christopher." I said in a smart-ass tone.

Chris rolled his eyes. "Don't call me Christopher, _Gordon_."

I chuckled and hit his shoulder playfully, and we we walked past another small family-owned building. We were getting closer and closer to Mr. Minkus's flower shop. We were about a block away from the shop. Already, I could see Teddy and Vern, standing in front of the window and admiring the pretty multicolored flowers. The shop owner, Stewart Minkus, was a nice man with a lot of money. His son, Farkle, was in our grade. He's kind of a geek, but a nice, happy-go-lucky, friendly geek. He's dating a brunette girl named Riley Matthews. Riley's got an older, dirty blonde haired brother named Lucas (whose in the year above us) and a younger brother with dark brown, curly hair, named August, nicknamed Auggie. He's eight years old. Nice kid. Lucas's dating a girl named Maya Hart. Lucas's originally from Texas, while Maya and Riley were from New York City. Lucas has a friend named Zay Babineaux, whose also from Texas. Me, Chris, Vern, and Teddy were their friends. They're a tight-knit group, full of friendliness and whatnot. Their nice people. ( _Farkle, Riley, Maya and Lucas are all still alive, and are still best friends. Farkle and Riley got married, and so did Lucas and Maya. I attended both of their lovely weddings, with Chris at my side_.)

Anyway, Chris and I waved at Vern and Teddy and called their names.

"Hey guys!" Vern called, scrambling over to us. Teddy followed behind slower, shouldering his bag.

"How're you?" Chris asked, smiling.

"Good." They chorused.

"You ready to walk to the bus stop?" I asked, taking a big bite of my apple. It was almost finished, I just needed to ingest a few more bites of said food.

They nodded, and we all walked down the street, talking amongst ourselves. We turned a corner walked a couple of more minutes until we got to the bus stop.

"So, you ready for another day at school, guys?" I asked, already knowing the answer.

"No." Vern and Teddy chorused automatically.

 _There's_ the answer. I knew it was coming.

I laughed and munched on the last few bits of my apple, then threw the apple core in a trash can as I was passing by it. We walked in comfortable silence as we slowly but surely moved towards our school. The 20th century, wide, tall, large brick building (with a lot of windows placed all around the building to allow natural sunlight to come inside of the school) eventually comes into our sight after a couple of minutes. We walked up the concrete steps and up the pathway to the double doors, waving at a couple of people who waved at us. I nodded at two of my classmates, Suzanne Anderson and William Caine, who nodded back. Vern sighed, then opened up the right wooden door, holding it open for us. We all walked inside, Vern following after us before the wooden door closed with a soft thump. Students of all different shapes, sizes, skin color (ranging from pale to deeply tanned from the relentless Southern sun), hair color, eye color and clothing styles walked around with each other, holding their books in their arms, talking with each other. I caught snippets of their conversations here and there.

"God, I hate school." Vern complained as we started walking towards our dark red painted lockers.

Chris looked over at him as if he just said he grew a second head. "You always say that."

"I know." Vern muttered, sighing heavily.

I rolled my eyes at that, walking up to my locker, locker 214. I drummed my fingers on the locker a couple of out of habit, then spun the dial around, entering my combination with practiced ease. Every single student in this school had the same lockers since ninth grade, no ifs, ands, or buts about it. I'd have the same locker for two more school years. "So, where are your girlfriends?" I asked when I heard the lock click, grabbing the small metal handle and yanking open my locker.

"I'm not sure." Teddy and Vern chorused.

"You wanna go look for them, or…?" Chris rose his eyebrow, letting the question hang in the air.

Both of them nodded. "Yeah." Then they turned on their heels and walked away, down the hall before turning a corner, presumably towards their girlfriend's lockers.

I sighed, placing my backpack to the side of me, crouching down and opening it up before starting to stuff the books and binders I needed into it. "Did you know that Teddy said that he'd rather go fuck a goat than do English homework?"

Chris leaned against the locker next to mine, arms crossed over his chest. "That's bullshit."

"I'm not lying, Chris. He really said that."

Chris hummed. "So, Gordie, why haven't _you_ gotten yourself a girlfriend yet?" He asked, changing the subject.

I shrugged. "I don't see the point, really. I'd probably only date a girl for like three, four weeks then break up. Ensue awkwardness." I answered, flipping through my math binder absently as I continuously looked up at him from my binder.

He shrugged, keeping quiet.

"And why do you want to know?" I asked, not unkindly. "I mean, you're asking me of all people. Me. Gordie LaChance, a nerdy boy whose somewhat socially inept." I said as I flipped through my math binder some more, skimming over the class papers and notes. "Gordie LaChance, a boy's parents who didn't know that I existed until a month and a half ago. Gordie LaChance, an ugly boy who really likes to eat pipping hot, drowning-in-so-much-salt-I'd-have-six-hundred-heart-attacks-from-eating-only-half-of-the-plate-French-fries-since-that's-basically-all-I-eat-on-a-daily-basis. Me, whose annoying and next to invisible to the entire world. Me, Gordie, who gets bullied on a daily basis. _That_ Gordie LaChance." I told him in a flat tone as I shut my binder and threw it into my bag.

"You…" he seemed stunned, "Yeah, you do eat a lot of French fries. Like, it's insanely worrying how much you love those damned things." Is the only thing he can say.

I laughed. "I love French fries more than I love reading comic books and sleeping. And you know how much I love comic books and sleeping." I said, then grabbed my biology binder plus my textbook and shoved it into my bag. I zipped up my bag, standing up and looking at him.

Chris smirked. "True that, Gordie. Although there is one thing that I'm worried about."

"What's that?"

"I'm worried that if you eat another plate of French fries, you'll actually turn into one."

"Hey, Chris?" I asked without missing a beat.

"What?"

"Would it be… would it be considered cannibalism if you turned into a French fry and ate little tiny bite sized pieces of yourself - a human who turned into a… um, hybrid?… of a potato?"

Chris frowned. "That's not something I'd ever thought I'd hear you ask in both of our lives." He paused. "…What the fuck did you just even say?"

"I… I have no idea." I admitted, shrugging my shoulders.

Chris laughed, patting my shoulder. "You're weird."

"Hey!"

"You know it's true." He teased. I rolled my eyes. "Alright. You ready?" He asked.

I nodded and shifted my bag so it was more secure over my shoulder. "You need to go to your locker too, right?" I asked.

"Yep. Let's go. Wait, hold up." He said, then started walking down the multitude of hallways filled with identical red lockers, and students and faculty. We talked with each other, Chris occasionally stopping in the middle of his sentence to say a polite hello to a couple of people who said "Hi Chris.", before continuing what he was saying to me without a problem. "Did Teddy really say that he'd rather go fuck a goat than do English homework?"

"Yeah. I didn't know he was into that kinda stuff." I snarked with a straight face.

Chris smirked. "Neither did I. And how would that be atomically possible?"

"No idea. But if anybody could find out and tell us, it'd be Teddy."

Chris laughed as we turned the corner, walking down the hall. We walked down the identical rows of red lockers before me and Chris both stopped at the same time at his locker. Locker 82. "You want me to stay?" I asked, watching as my friend put his combination in.

"Nah. The warning bell for first period is gonna ring in a couple of minutes, and I don't wanna make you late." He said, yanking open his locker. It was true that the warning bell would ring in a few minutes, but Chris wouldn't make me late for my first class of the day. Ah, the warning bell, and the bells that signify the end of each forty-five minute period, nine times a day, every single school day. With it's sharp, wailing police siren loud, incessant "RIIINNNNGGGG", it was hard to miss and ignore. "So you can head over to class." He continued, grabbing a bright red colored binder.

"You won't make me late." I said, running my hand through my hair. "Besides, Mr. Camarkuhanzi's not gonna yell at me-" I paused when someone said hello to Chris so he could say hello back, "-for walking into class with you." I finished, watching as he shoved the binder into his bag.

Chris sighed and grabbed a book. "I don't care if he wouldn't, Gordie." He shoved said book into his bag. "I'll see you in second period, alright?"

"Yeah, sure. See you there." I said before walking away.


	3. Chapter 3: Bullies & Camping

**Disclaimer: I do not own Stand By Me, or anything or anyone that you recognize, like Gordie, Chris, Ace and Eyeball. They belong to their rightful owners. I only own my OC's and whatever else you don't recognize.**

 **Actors/actresses for my OC's :**

 **Abigail Schaefer's actress is Olivia Holt. (She is Teddy's girlfriend.)**

 **Kristina Vandenberg's actress is Isabelle Fuhrman. (She is Vern's girlfriend.)**

 **Preston Carlyle's actor is David Henrie.**

 **Finally, I apologize in advance if there are any spelling, grammar, punctuation, sentence structure, etcetera - mistakes. I do not have a Beta reader, so all mistakes are mine.**

 **Enjoy chapter three of Sink or Swim.**

 **XXX**

 **Chapter Three: Bullies & Camping**

 **XXX**

I walked down a couple long stretches of hallway before I turned a lot of corners, walking down the senior wings of lockers (because I had to walk through the senior wing to get to my first period class), far away from the junior wing of the school, and even further away from Chris's locker by now.

I was looking down in my backpack and blindly rummaging through it, trying (and failing) to find a sharp enough pencil for class when all the sudden a boy with quiff-styled dark brown hair ran directly into me. I was knocked off my feet and on my ass in a split second, flinching instinctually in alarm and pain. "OW!" I yelled, louder than necessary.

"Watch where you're going, you ugly worm." Preston Carlyle's voice snapped irritably.

I gulped so hard it would almost be comical if it wasn't for the fact I could've shit a couple really nasty bricks right then and there. Preston Carlyle was one of the douchebag seniors at our school who had no respect for authority, who bullied most of the ninth, tenth, and eleventh grade male students. He was on the football team with Vern. His grades sucked ass, even more so than Ace's grades, which sucked ass. He was one of the the cliché, stereotypical jocks of the school. I'm pretty sure he ended up in jail a couple of times during his high school career. He bullied me and Teddy. Not so much Chris, because he and his brother Eyeball are sort-of friends, and neither Vern, because Vern could beat him up and nobody wanted to screw with Vern because he was _that_ scary sometimes, but neither boy's were completely immune to Preston's taunts. Unfortunately for me, I was one of his most favorite victims. Shit shit shit. Not good.

"I'm s-sorry." I mumbled out, completely forgetting about my quest to find a freaking pencil, which got me into the situation in the first place. I zipped up my backpack and slid it back onto my shoulder, keeping my head bowed in a submissive position. My head was down, eyes downcast so I looked at his scuffed, dark blue shoes.

"What was that?"

I winced his icy, demanding tone. "I'm sorry." I said louder.

"Yeah, I'm sure you are." He said sarcastically, then ripped my bag off my shoulder, unzipped all the zippers, then shook out the contents. My binders, folders, and papers all clanked to the ground noisily. A pencil bonked to the ground. Smirking in that stereotypical bully satisfaction kinda way, he threw my bag to the ground and stepped on it. A dirty boot print appeared on it.

 _Great_. I thought. _Thanks_.

There was a crowd gathering around us, encircling us like a pack of wolves surrounding its prey and trapping me with this brute of a human. Oh no. Motherfucking hell. I had to get out of there, and fast.

"Hey. LaChance." Preston sneered.

I ignored Preston, trying my hardest to sidestep out of the way of him before I got pummeled and hung on a clothing like to dry. But I couldn't. His large hand pressed itself rudely onto my chest and pushed me backwards. I stumbled back a step, managing to catch my footing.

"You're such a faggot, LaChance." He growled.

"I'm not." I murmured submissively.

"You are, LaChance. Your clothes and the people you hang out indicate that you are in fact a faggot. I bet you like taking it up the ass." He sneered, tone icy.

Everyone laughed at this, and I felt my cheeks heat up in embarrassment at being watched by the seniors. "I'm not a faggot." I said again, this time a lot more defensively. I wanted to scream at him and punch him in his perfect goddamned teeth for dragging my friends through the mud, but I kept silent.

"Yeah, and I'm a nigger." He said flatly. "Little faggot." He sneered.

(He was not a nigger, no sir.)

"I'm _not_ a faggot." I snapped before I could help myself.

"Right." Preston said sarcastically. "And I'm sure that idiot Chris Chambers likes shoving his tiny dick into a man's hole."

Rage coursed through me at a speed that made me almost whip forward and punch Preston in the face without my consent, without any control of my own movements. Fuck that asshole for saying those things about _my_ _best_ _god_ _damned friend._ Bullies could say whatever the hell they wanted about me; they could insult anything and everything about me (so long as said insults weren't about Denny or his death, or my neglectful assholes of parents), but _never_ my friends. If a bully talked shit about my friends, especially if it was Chris, I would unleash the full wrath of my Hell upon them. And many years of suppressed unbridled rage. Resisting the urge to kick him in the one place where a man does not want to be kicked, I took a deep breath, straightened my shoulders and glared at Preston darkly, with as much anger that I could muster to be seen in my eyes on plastered on my face, which was a lot.

"Oh, and by the way, how's your brother?" I snarked before I could stop myself. I cringed almost instantly when those words left my mouth.

 _Shit_. I really shouldn't have said that. His younger brother had died a couple weeks ago. I really should have kept my mouth shut. Fuck. This was bad idea, and would most likely end up with my stupid skinny ass on the ground. Damn it, I crossed a gigantic line. No, I crossed the fucking equator. _Shit_.

Preston's face twisted up in rage. Before I could react, his large hands whipped forward and shoved me against the row of lockers with enough strength to cause somebody to pass out. But I did not pass out. I stumbled back and audibly hit the cold metal lockers with a loud BANG!, and nausea instantly swam through me.

My head throbbed at million miles an hour at such an alarming rate, and I had to bite back bile, which I could feel rising. I could hear Preston scream horrible sounding insults at me through the swimming-through-maple-syrup like haze I was in. I couldn't hear anything, it was like I was under water. I could barely stand upright. I was about to slump to the ground, when all the sudden I saw Preston's tan fist come at my face. I couldn't defend myself from the punch. Couldn't even lift my arms up to defend myself in time. I felt the punch land, and white spots quickly danced along my eyes as the back of my head smashed against the cold metal locker behind me, coupled with the five of the harsh blow.

Ow.

I had only gasped out in pain and collapsed to the floor when I suddenly felt Preston kick me in the shin as hard as he could. I felt red blood run down from my nose in thick stream, then I heard the jeers and loud taunts directed at me of the older kids tear through my already throbbing brain. I'm sure that I would have a really nasty bruise on the back of my head come tomorrow morning. I felt Preston's leather, steel toe boot collide with my stomach. I curled up on myself, trying to protect myself from the multitude of blows to the stomach that I was receiving.

Preston spat on the floor in front of me once he was done abusing me, eyes dark and filled with rage. "You're pathetic, LaChance. Fuck you." He snarled.

I was in too much pain to come up with a response. After a few seconds, I could hear people's footsteps receding, including Preston's after a long moment. I could hear the hushed whispers of people's voices as they obviously talked about me getting my ass publicly beat up, and thrown around like a rag doll and humiliated in front of the all the seniors.

As I laid there on the cold hard floor, humiliated and upset, mostly trying not to scream in pain or cry from the pain I felt or from the embarrassment I felt, with my hand on my bleeding nose and gasping like a fish out of water, I thought about the hell of a headache I would have when I was able to stand upright and move again, and how badly I fucked up. What my parents would say when they saw my injuries.

What Chris would say if - no, when - he finally found me beat up and bloody.

God _damn_ it.

I closed my eyes, gasping out a short, shaky breath. I swallowed hard, trying to slowly pushing myself up off the cold ground. I collapsed back to it when the pain in my head increased by the tenfold, no, by the thousandfold. Shit. Did I have a concussion? I hoped like hell that I didn't. That would suck.

I opened my eyes again, wiping off the blood from my nose with the back of my hand. "Fucking shit." I muttered to myself, one hand resting on my stomach. It throbbed painfully. "Son of a bitch!" I yelled out into the empty hallway. I winced as the noise reverberated around the empty hall, the sound echoing my already-hurting brain with the force of a freight train going at one-hundred-seventy-five miles per hour. Fuck. My stomach hurt like a _bitch_. I groaned as I carefully rested my head against the locker, taking in a couple of gasping breaths which sent pinpricks of pain shooting throughout my body, mainly my stomach. Ow. "Fucking bullies." I complained to no one again as I let my head loll to the side, wincing as it sent yet another sharp pain racing through my skull. My whole entire body was throbbing in pain. I needed to force myself up off the ground and drag my sorry butt to the nurse's office.

I groaned again, trying yet again to stand up, but failing. I didn't bother calling out for Chris, or Vern, or Teddy, or anyone else, because I knew that they wouldn't be able to hear me through the crowds of people and the loud, talking/chatting voices, and the bell that would ring again as another warning for the high school kids to get to their classes, so I just sat there on the floor miserably.

I waited there in misery for seven minutes ( _I counted the seconds that passed in my head and then converted the numbers/seconds into minutes - hey, in my own defense, I was kind of bored_ ), trying to collect my strength to get up until I heard footsteps clomping their way down the hall. I tensed, expecting to hear the loud jeers of more athletes as soon as they opened their mouths. But as the footsteps got closer, I closed my eyes, not wanting to look at whoever was about to pass by me directly in the eyes and become even more humiliated, or even worse, beaten up some more. Although I realized through my haze that it was only one pair of footsteps, but it sounded like a lot more. Maybe my concussion - if I had one - was a lot worse than I had originally thought.

Fuck.

I turned my head slightly when the footsteps got closer to me to see who it was, half expecting to see a damned jock in our red and white letterman jacket, and I tensed and closed my eyes, waiting for the teasing and jeers to begin, already expecting to feel the blows of feet and fists. When I slowly opened them, I only saw Chris. His ocean blue eyes grew wide when he saw my injured, bloody state. He gasped quietly, rushing over to my side as fast as he could. "Gordie?!" He asked in disbelief.

"Yeah." I sighed heavily. "Hi." I said slowly, not even bothering to lift my hand to wave at him with clear sarcasm.

"What the fuck happened?!" He demanded, crouching down next to me and gently prying my bloodied hand away from my bloodied nose.

"Things." I said shortly, being vague on purpose in case he got any ideas on hurting Preston. I didn't need him to get sent to the principle's office or get expelled due to him protecting my sorry, skinny ass. "Also, word of advice: Don't piss of Preston Carlyle." Shit. Why the heck did I say that? I literally just contradicted myself.

"Preston did this?" He asked, grabbing my bag and starting to fill up the contents again.

I nodded.

Chris's face turned from concerned to murderous rage in two seconds. " _He did this to you_?" He asked lowly, sliding one of my books into my bag again.

I nodded again, wincing half in pain as I took another deep breath, and half at the murderous tone of his lowered voice. "Chris, it's fine."

"No it's not. He fucking hurt you, and damn it Gordie, that's not okay. In fact I'm gonna kill his stupid ass." He growled, unceremoniously throwing my pencil pouch into my bag. I got another sense of déjà vu. This was almost exactly like the conversation Chris and I had when he came over my house and we started yelling at each other about me saying that Chris's father was abusing him, and him saying that "it's nothing", that "it's fine", but this time, the roles were reversed, where I was the one insisting that I was fine, that everything was fine, and Chris looked like he was about to go on a murderous rampage. I didn't want to argue again, especially not with Chris being the only person who's here that would actually help me.

"Don't worry about it, okay? Here, help me up." I said in an attempt to change the subject. Chris huffed out a breath, placed my bag down next to him, and quickly helped me up, keeping his arm wrapped tightly around my waist, steadying me.

"I'm gonna take you to the nurse's office." He commented unnecessarily. I shook my head, being the stubborn asshole Chris had come to know.

"No. Don't bother. I just wanna get to class as soon as I can. Bring me to the bathroom." I muttered.

"Gordie, I know you give a ton of shits about your academics, and I guess that's admirable, but… well, you sure?" He asked as he handed me my bag.

I slung it over my shoulder. "I'm sure."

"You sure?" He asked again after a moment of silence, making sure that I was sticking to my guns.

I nodded. I really didn't want to explain the incident to our school's coffee deprived, overworked yet underpaid nurse. "Yeah. I'll just wash up in the bathroom."

Chris nodded. He looked at me with worry plain on his face, then sighed before guiding (well, it was more like dragging than guiding) me down a couple hallways and turning a couple corners, before nudging the boy's bathroom door open with his foot. We shuffled inside, and Chris guided me to the sink. There wasn't anybody inside, thank God. I wouldn't want anyone to see me like this, you know, all beaten up and shit.

I numbly gripped the cold edges of the sink in my pale, light red blood-spattered hand, and just staring at my broken and rumpled reflection in the mirror, taking it in. I pitied myself. I had a large bruise on my cheek, a bloody and red-from-the-punch nose, an already-forming black eye, and I already knew that I would have a bump on the back of my head in the morning. I was sure that I had bruises littering my stomach from Preston's boot. The headache went away in the time Chris had managed to drag my ass to the boy's bathroom, but not completely. I could feel it throbbing slightly, but it was like it was on the back burner, so to speak. Still there, but not as persistent as it was before. Chris ran his hand through his hair before spinning on his heel. He locked the bathroom door behind us, and it resounded around the tiny tiled bathroom. I glanced over at him, confusion overtaking me.

"Why the hell did you do that?" I questioned.

"For privacy. Don't need anyone coming in here and asking what happened." He stated in a matter-of-fact tone.

He had a fair point.

Chris walked back over to me, gently touching my cheek. I flinched away from his touch instinctively. "Sorry. Instinctual." I apologized when I saw the small frown on his face.

Chris shrugged his shoulders. "It's okay." He said, then yanked the hand-crank to the paper towel dispenser, and the rough, ugly brown paper came spilling out. He ripped off a good piece, crumpling it into a ball and turning on the cold faucet. He let the ball of paper towel wet before crumpling it up and squeezing the excess water out of it and gently placing it on my cheek, right on my bruise. I winced, reflexively pulling away from him. "Fuck!" I hissed.

"Sorry, sorry." He muttered.

I sighed heavily. "It's fine." I muttered, keeping quiet as he put the "washcloth" back on my injury. "Thanks for helping me, Chris." I said after a moment.

He smiled warmly. "You're welcome, Gordie."

I smiled a bit, but as a few bolts of pain ran through me as Chris placed the "washcloth" over my forming black eye, the smile evaporated from my lips, replaced my a grimace. I winced and my hand seized out without my command to grip at Chris's bicep. "Damn it!" I hissed, my knuckles going white as I gripped hard at Chris's shirt.

Chris immediately pulled his hand away from my eye, guilt on his face. "Sorry, again."

I gritted my teeth together, trying to ignore the pain for his sake as well as mine. "It's fine." I mumbled, my hand automatically slipping down to Chris's forearm and gripping it so I could brace myself for the next spike of pain that would no doubt shoot through me.

"You look like dog shit." He said.

"Oh yeah, thank you, Christopher." I said sarcastically. Although I could tell he was trying to lighten the mood, which I was grateful for. "I'm dizzy." I mumbled.

"You're dizzy?" He asked in a concerned tone.

I make a weird noise that sounded like a hybrid cross between "yes", and "uh-huh". I sighed. "But I'm only a little — okay, a lot dizzy."

Chris applied the washcloth to my eye again, and my nails dug into his arm a bit. He didn't do or say anything. In fact, there was virtually no change in his facial expression. "Where else did that asshole hit you?" Is the only thing he asked.

I thought about saying "I'm fine" again, but there was no point in trying to hide it. It wouldn't do me any good if I hid my other injuries. Besides, I didn't feel like repeating the same argument exact again, only with opposite sides. I wasn't completely sure if I could physically, mentally and emotionally handle it. "My shin. Stomach." I said, pointing to the areas. "My back hurts, but I'm sure that'll go away soon."

"How'd that happen?"

"Carlyle slammed me into a locker." I sighed heavily.

Chris nodded, ocean blue eyes full of concern. After he pulled the washcloth away I felt better, and let my death-grip drop away. He threw the wad of paper towel into the trash. "Can you…" he paused.

"Can I what?"

He silently motioned to my shirt. "Um, that."

"Oh. Yeah. Sure." I said, nodding and pulling up my shirt to reveal my stomach to him. "How's it look?"

"It looks…" he let out a sharp breath, "better than I thought it would be." He admitted, running his hand through his hair.

I frowned and glanced over at the mirror, then cringed at what I saw. Dark bruises stretched over my pale skin, especially on my stomach. It hurt a lot. "Oh, shit." I cursed, pulling my shirt down carefully. If that was my stomach, how was my back looking? Probably a little bit better, but not by much. "Well, I'm just happy that you found me when you did and helped me up." I said. "God knows how long it would've taken for me to drag my sorry bruised ass here by myself. I'd probably be on the floor, whimpering like a goddamned newborn baby by now if you hadn't found me when you did, Chris." I said, trying to make the situation lighter by joking about it.

"Yeah." He muttered. He didn't look amused by my lame attempt at a self-degrading joke. "Right." Damn. It didn't work. Oh well.

"…Fucking hell, Chris." I said after a moment.

"Yeah, I know." He muttered. He glanced up into my eyes and cupped my cheek, the one without the bruise. I didn't lean into his warm hand despite something inside of me telling me to.

"You sure you don't want to go to the nurse?" He asked, tracing my cheek with his thumb gently.

"Yeah." I sighed. "I'm sure."

Chris nodded. "Okay. Come on. Let's head back to class."

I nodded, swallowed hard and shuffled my feet awkwardly.

Chris unlocked the door and we walked out of the bathroom, heading towards our next class. I followed him slowly.

As we walked down the hallways together, I realized that I was in a lot more pain than I originally thought I was. The adrenaline must have wore off. I was in fucking agony now. The nurse's office was about to come up, we just had to walk down another long stretch of hallway and it'd be the first door on the right of the hallway. "Actually, Chris?" I said, looking over at my best friend in the whole entire world.

"Yeah, Gordo?"

I smiled at the nickname. "Can we go to the nurses office?"

He nodded his head before running his hand through his blond hair. "Sure thing, man."

 **XXX**

"Hey Gordie? Do you want to go camping?"

I glanced over at my friend, eyes wide. Confusion tugged at my gut. "What?"

"Camping. A couple Saturday's from now. With me."

"What?" I repeated stupidly.

"Yeah, dude. You know, camping. The definition of camping is where people set up tents, have campfires, tell scary bullshit stories in dramatic voices to try to try and spook the other person or people, eat s'more's, and act like a bunch of idiots with their faces in dirt?"

I snorted. "That's not the actual definition of camping."

"Kinda is."

I rolled my eyes. "Yeah, sure." I said dryly, punching his shoulder.

Chris laughed, then took out the deck of cards that was nearby and took them out, and I watched him as he shuffled the cards. It was a month after my incident with Preston. Good news, I didn't have a concussion. Bad news, my body was sore for the next couple days. My eye hurt, and so did my cheek. It took a couple more days for the black eye to go down and stay gone.

"You really want me to go camping with you?" I asked, leaning back on my padded seat cushion.

He nodded. "Hell yeah, Gordie."

I smiled. "Good. I'd love to go, then."

Chris smiled and patted my shoulder, and we started talking about dates that we could go camping while Chris passed out a couple cards to me.

 **XXX**

 **Teddy's POV**

"Hey, look Vern!" I told Vern excitedly, slapping my friend's shoulder to get his attention off of his shoes. "There are Abigail and Kristina!" Said girls were walking towards, chatting happily with each other. Abigail had two boxes in stacked up in her hands and Kristina had a styrofoam cup holder in her hand, holding four icy cold, sweet drinks. As the four of us got closer to each other, I could see that the boxes were from Helms Bakery, a popular bakery chain that had bakery chains placed all across the country, and the drinks were from a smaller bakery near the edge of town. My mouth watered at the thought of biting into one of those mouth-watering cupcakes or brownies, or whatever treats our lovely girlfriends got us, and taking a sip of the cold, sweet drinks, relieving our parched tongues, lips, and throats. As they got closer to us, I could see that Abigail's long blonde hair was pulled up in a ponytail. Kristina's long black hair was pulled up into a tight braid.

Abigail walked up to me, her doe brown eyes sparkling in the sun. "Morning, baby." She greeted. I smiled at the nickname. "Morning, Vern." She said before I pulled her into a soft kiss. Her lips were warm against mine. I relished in it. I ran my fingers between her blonde hair, and she smiled against my lips.

Kristina smiled and kissed Vern's cheek, her eyes sparkling in the baking southern sun. They were wearing light colored t-shirts and light colored shorts, thankfully. They wouldn't have a stroke in this heat.

"Morning." I smiled. "You girls got us some desserts and drinks?" I asked the obvious question.

Abigail nodded. "Yeah. Your favorites."

Vern's face lit up like a kid in a candy store's. Leave it to Vern Tessio to become so excited over the mention of his favorite deserts. "Really?"

"Yep."

I smiled wider. "You're the best girlfriend's two guys could ever ask for."

The two girls exchanged a glance and smirked. "We know." They said at the same time.

I rolled my eyes, grinned, and took the drink labeled Teddy from the cup holder, the Southern sun shining down on us.

 **XXX**

 **Gordie's POV**

I sighed heavily, running my hand through my shortened brown hair. Luckily I was able to get it cut a couple days ago. It felt a little weird at first, only because I was so used to floppy bangs constantly in my way, or fringe gaps whenever I styled my hair into a fringe. Or "splinges", as Kristina would call them. It was different, but a good different. I was just glad that my hair wouldn't be in my face the entire time I was camping. Until I had to get it cut again, it was nice not to have the nuisance of having to shove it back out of my face. It was gone. Thank God for that.

Anyway, I was walking down the street with Chris beside me, and I smiled at my friend. There was a pep in his step that hadn't been there a few hours ago, when we went to get ice cream together at eight in the morning as a quick snack.

"You're very excited for this, aren't you?" I asked, laughing.

"You bet I am. I've been waiting for this for four weeks."

"Really, now?" I drawled, raising my eyebrow. "All this time, and nothing else was occupying your mind?"

"Nothin'." He confirmed, smirking a little bit.

I laughed. "You're so full of shit."

Chris shoved my shoulder playfully. "Screw off."

I laughed harder. "Come on." I said after I sobered up. "We should hurry up. We'll probably get there a little later in the afternoon, but in the hot sun, I'm not sure if the both of us would feel like setting up our camp in this hot weather." We had gotten finished with eating an earlier lunch at our houses. So we wouldn't be starving to death when we we had to walk to the forest in the hot sun.

"Right." Chris said, then started walking faster towards the forest. I eagerly followed him.

 **XXX**

To be honest, as much as I knew that Chris somehow enjoyed the hot sun of Castle Rock most days, if not all days, I knew that he wanted it gone today. Well, not completely gone, but so it was nice enough to go camping, where we wouldn't drown in our own sweat. But since Chris had told me that he had decided to put his dislike of the cooler temperatures aside for a day or two, he and I had agreed that it should be today of all Saturdays, no matter what the weather was like. Big mistake on our part.

I, as you know, was the opposite. I hated the heat. I wanted the heat gone from my life, but I knew that would never happen. Damned Southern heat. ( _Now, I love the heat_.) But even with the (rare) occurrence of rain, there was no way in hell that Chris would cancel on me because of a little rain. It wouldn't kill him. I highly doubted that he'd melt into a puddle at the first raindrop touching his tan skin.

We walked out of Castle Rock after lunchtime and down a long stretch of smooth, blacktop paved road. It would take a long time to get to the forest for an optimal camping location. I guessed that it must have taken four and a half hours for us to arrive at the woods.

It took about forty minutes to find a good enough clear area to pitch our tent and put down our sleeping bags. When we found a good clearing in the forest, Chris took his backpack off and started to rummage through it. He didn't speak to me for a couple seconds.

"What are you-" my question was answered when he found a flashlight. "Oh."

Chris smirked. "Yeah. You bought the food and drinks, right?"

I nodded. "Yeah. I did."

Chris nodded. "Good. We don't want a repeat of what happened during time with Vern."

"You mean that time during our trip where Vern forgot to pack the food and the drinks and then only coughed up a couple cents for food?" I asked.

"Yeah." He muttered, nodding again.

I laughed. "Fun times."

He rolled his eyes. "Yeah, yeah." He set the flashlight down next to him.

"Okay." I sighed heavily, tilting my head up towards the large trees, which hid the sun. Good. At least we'd get some form of protection from the sun.

"You made sure that we have extra batteries?" I asked unnecessarily.

"Yep." He said, pulling them out and showing me. We had more than enough to last the weekend. If we didn't have school on Monday, or if it was a vacation week and we had no school for a week or two, I'm sure that we would have stayed in the woods longer, just hanging out. It's not like our parents would constantly worry about our whereabouts or even miss us all that much.

I nodded. "Okay."

"So, what should we do first?" Chris asked.

"How about getting the tent set up?"

"Yeah. Sounds good to me."

 **XXX**

 **Chris's POV**

I sighed heavily, poking the good sized fire Gordie and I had made an hour and a half ago with a large heavy thick stick, one that wouldn't burn up instantly once it touched the fire. I would have had to throw it directly into the fire itself and leave it in the bright orange and yellow flames in order to actually blacken it. The temperature had dropped significantly in the past couple hours. Where it was over ninety degrees out when it was still daylight out, it was around fifty degrees at night. Gordie and I collected wood and made the fire, miraculously without burning ourselves in the process. After a while of talking and eating our dinner (hot dogs and chips), Gordie announced that he was going to sleep. We said goodnight to each other, and Gordie crawled into the tent and was asleep in the dark green tent that was a good distance away from the fire - enough so that the tent wouldn't be burnt down by an unexpected gust of wind or something, but enough to keep warm tonight - nestled up in a sleeping bag, his head on a pillow he had brought from his house.

I poked the fire some more, licking my lips and watching the sparks fly up in the air. The fire popped and sizzled. I set the poking stick down and rubbed my arm absentmindedly.

I heard Gordie audibly shift from inside the tent. A small whimper of uncomfortableness left his lips. I ignored it, chalking it up to just that - uncomfortableness. We weren't really all that used to sleeping on the ground. We only went camping once before, and that was when we were on that trip to find Ray Brower's dead body, when we had to stop for the night. Gordie and me talked for what felt like forever (I cried about not being good enough, Gordie comforted me). Gordie eventually fell asleep with his head on my shoulder. Teddy came over and handed me a blanket for Gordie's head and his body, and two for my own use before making a joke about how Gordie looked like a sleeping princess. I glared at him for a long uncomfortable stretch of silence, and he eventually shifted and walked away, muttering about the fact that "one of my army men are sleeping while on guard duty, and the other older man is overprotective of the younger army man." I was the one who was "other old man" who is "overprotective" over Gordie. Gordie was the "younger army man" who was "sleeping while on guard duty".

Teddy's crazy.

Anyway, I used both of the blankets. I used it to keep my body warm, then I placed one of Gordie's blankets on my lap in a square, big enough to stay as a makeshift pillow. Then I put the blanket in sandwiched between my head and the tree for some form of comfort, then I spread out Gordie's second blanket around his body. I drifted off to sleep soon enough, completely exhausted. Now's the second time me and Gordie have gone camping. Only this time was a little different. We weren't on our way to see a dead kid our age. And this time, we had a tent.

I picked up the poking stick again and poked at the fire. I listened to the fire pop and sizzle before reaching over to the wood pile and throwing another piece of wood on the fire. The fire retaliated by popping and sizzling again, with light orange sparks shooting up into the night sky.

Suddenly I heard a series of loud whimpers, and a "no, please don't", coming from the tent. Crap. Gordie must be having a nightmare. That wasn't good. I put the poking stick down and unzipped the tent as quickly and as quietly as I could before zipping it up again quickly. I looked over at Gordie's form and flinched at what I saw. The poor fifteen year old kid was curled up into a ball, and he sweating, and there were tears streaming down his face. His dark brown hair was plastered to his head. The blanket I had put over his sleeping bag wasn't on his body anymore, but instead it was in a heap off to the side of his sleeping bag. I swallowed hard.

"No…" he gasped out suddenly, making my heart jump into my throat. "Please, don't, please…" Damn, Gordie was a loud sleep talker.

"Gordie?" I asked, moving towards him. I shook his shoulder gently, to try and wake him up. It didn't work. I waited for a moment, my shoulders kind of tense. When he didn't stir, I was about to shake his shoulder again, for the second time, before he said out loud:

"He's my best friend, Dad. Don't you fucking touch him." He muttered. I frowned. He was talking to his father about me, and that honestly alarmed me a little bit. Just what was going on his dream that would make Gordie say that? Actually, on second thought, I didn't want to know what was happening. I knew it was bad, well, whatever his current dream/nightmare was. "Just don't…" he mumbled, rolling over on his side, towards me. There were more tears streaming down his cheeks. I went to wipe them away, but then he sobbed, then swallowed hard. I didn't move. "No! Don't! I… NO!" He screamed, making me jump at the volume as it resounded around the tent. "CHRIS! NO!" He screamed louder, his voice cracking.

My breath hitched in my throat. My curiosity was back by the tenfold. Did Gordie's in dream dad hit me? What exactly happened? I waited in tense silence for what felt like an eternity, and Gordie muttered in his sleep, keeping quiet. I probably should've woken him up when he screamed my name, but I didn't. I held my breath, confused and alarmed.

"Chris…" Gordie sobbed after a while, "I… no… NO!" He screamed again.

Okay, enough was enough. I couldn't watch him cry and scream and worry over whatever was happening to me in his dream anymore. It physically pained me to see him in pain. It was time to wake up my best friend from his nightmare.

"Hey Gordie, wake up, man!" I shouted above his screaming, my eyes wide with fear and confusion when he yelled my name again, raw emotion lacing his voice. I shook his whole entire body, accidentally doing it harder than I meant to. "Gordie!" I shouted again loudly, "come on dude, wake up! Gordie!"

Gordie's eyes flew open at the sound of me basically screaming his name into his ear above all of _his_ screaming (probably because I was right next to him), and he sat up straight like a rocket. His shoulders tensed up. "NO! CHRIS!" He yelled out loud. I winced at the volume, my ears throbbing a bit. He started breathing shakily. "C-Chris?" He asked after he got another gulp of air into his lungs.

"Hey, you're okay." I soothed. "Shh, you're okay." I whispered, my voice soft and reassuring.

"What… Nightmare." He said, realization flickering across his face.

I nodded. "Yeah. You had a nightmare. Everything okay?"

"It's fine." He said in a hollow voice. But it clearly wasn't fine. Whatever his father had said or done to him or me in his dream must've really did some damage to him.

"You wanna talk about it?" I asked gently.

"No." He shook his head. "I don't." He sobbed again, wiping tears away from his cheeks. His sobbing got louder, and no matter what, tears kept slipping down his cheeks.

 **XXX**

 **Gordie's POV**

I inhaled then exhaled sharply. I focused on steadying my breathing. Inhale, exhale. Inhale, exhale. I repeated this motion until I had my breathing pattern back to normal. I kept denying Chris's questions to talk about my dream. I didn't want to talk Chris about my dream. I couldn't, even if I wanted to. I couldn't open my mouth and even _begin_ to talk about my dream.

Here's what happened…

 **XXX**

In my dream, my father found me and Chris getting a little close to each other as friends. The fact that we were getting closer and closer as friends in my dream made me feel funny, but it was a good funny. But in all honesty, looking back on it now, I really wasn't sure how to react to that part of my dream as a fifteen year old kid. To describe the part of my dream where I felt funny… it was… um, nice, I guess. I had this warm, fuzzy feeling all around my body, and I felt really good, like I was floating up in space, and in dream Chris was Earth. He was my home, as overly girly and cliché as that sounds.

But when my father busted into my room, my nice, tranquil dream turned into a nightmare. As it played out, the whole "nightmare" scenario was scary. The look in my father's eyes was pure rage and disappointment. The disappointment I could handle with no issue, because I've seen that emotion a ton of times in his eyes before before. I couldn't handle the pure rage. I was out of my element with that emotion. My father had screamed at us, and then he stormed over to my bed, picked me up with an incredible amount of strength that was superhuman, and threw me into the wall, and then he threw Chris to the ground and threatened to hurt him if he so much as shifted his weight. As I tried to recover from the sudden wall-throw, my father stormed over to me. He glared down at me, calling me a disgrace to the LaChance family name. Then he beat me up pretty badly while he kept on screaming obscenities at me ( _he hadn't laid a hand on me since I was three years old_ ). Chris, ever the peacemaker, was literally on his knees, begging him to stop hurting me with tears burning in his eyes. But my father ignored him and kept on beating me. After my father was done beating me for what felt like hours, I had multiple bad injuries. My right arm was broken, my head hurt like a bitch ( _and I probably had an in dream concussion, because my head hurt like a damned bitch when I came back to the real world, which was probably a real life subconscious reaction_ ), my left ankle was sprained badly, and I had scrapes and bruises everywhere, and I was bleeding pretty badly. Blood was pooling out of my nose, and my stomach was bleeding from a deep knife wound, and I could hardly breathe. The beating had been that bad. I didn't know where my in dream mother was, and I didn't want to know. Was my in dream mother worse than my in dream father?

I noticed that my father had some kind of weapon in his back pocket. I could see the outline of the penknife, from where my father had stabbed me in the stomach. It still had my wet, sticky blood on it, so my blood bled through the material and stained his jean back pocket. There was another weapon-like shape protruding out of the waistband of his jeans and hidden under his dark red shirt. I couldn't see what it was. I just hoped that he wouldn't hurt or kill Chris with it. My in dream father must have read my mind, because after he was done with beating me up, my father turned to me and threatened to kill Chris in front of me with the calmest of voices and the easiest smile on his lips.

Oh, fuck.

I coughed out blood from my mouth and managed to get some air back into my lungs. I took a deep breath through my nose and moan out a simple "why would you do this?". The answer my father in my nightmare gave me was extremely simple: "I will not have a homosexual living and breathing in this house. I'd rather kill you than have a goddamn homosexual in my house. I'm going to kill your little friend, too." The fact that I was a "goddamn homosexual" in my dream had shocked me like nothing else. I was the most shocked I've ever been, except for maybe when I found Ray Brower's dead body with my friends. I was a freaking homosexual in my dream? Really? No, that couldn't be. No way in hell. No.

In dream Chris had been trying to get up and help me, but my in dream father had pulled out the weapon that I couldn't identify. It was a gun. And it was Chris's father's gun. And, to top it all off, it was the same exact gun that I had threatened to shoot Ace with. That sent confusion and fear crashing through my bones like a tidal wave. The first thought that entered my mind was: How did he get the gun? In real life, it was at Chris's house, safe from anyone getting it. I knew that was one hundred percent true because real life Chris had told real life me that he had placed it back with his father's stuff when I asked about it. The second thought that crossed my mind was: He's going to shoot Chris. He's going to _kill Chris_.

"No…" I gasped out, my eyes wide with fear. "Please, don't, please…" I begged.

"You brought this on yourselves." He snapped, clicking the safety off.

Suddenly, rage crashed through me. "He's my best friend, Dad." I growled. "Don't you fucking touch him."

"I'm sorry, Gordie." But he didn't sound sorry, not one bit.

"Just don't…" I breathed out. My father got closer to Chris, and my fear increased drastically. I could barely breathe. "No! Don't! I… NO!" I screamed. "CHRIS! NO!"

"Gordie, it's okay." In dream Chris whispered, trying to send a what I assumed was a comforting smile, but it was strained. I could read the fear in his eyes, clear as day. "I'd rather have it be me than you. Just remember that I love you, okay? I-I love you." He looked at peace as those last three words left his lips. It scared the hell out of dream me.

"Chris…" I sobbed, my heart hammering in my chest. "I…" I groaned in pain as started to drag my sorry ass towards them, white-hot pain flashing through me at each tiny movement making me slower, "no… NO! CHRIS!" I screamed when my father pulled the trigger, and the loud sound of the gun going off, the sound of the bullet hitting Chris's skull, and the splatter of _Chris's blood_ heading my direction was the last thing I heard and saw in my dream before I woke up.

 **XXX**

"No. I don't wanna talk about it." I said again, much more stubbornly. There was no way in Hell I would spill my guts about my dream to Chris. It would happen over my dead freaking body, and that's a goddamned true fact right there. God freaking damn it.

Chris sighed. "Okay, okay. I won't push you, man."

"Thank you." I said shortly.

"You're welcome." He said, but he still looked concerned.

I licked my dry lips. "Did I wake you?" I asked in a rough, scratchy I-just-screamed-bloody-murder voice. I coughed a bit.

"Nah. I was outside. Although you might've woken up any wildlife around here." He joked.

I wiped my eyes. "Animals can fuck off." I managed a tiny smile.

Chris laughed. "True that." He wiped away a stray tear from my cheek with the back of his thumb.

I ran my hand through my hair, finally noticing that it was all sweaty. I pulled a grossed out face. "Fucking ew."

Chris patted my shoulder. "There's a river nearby."

"How do you know?" I asked, frowning.

"I scouted the place out while you were asleep."

"In the dark?" I asked incredulously.

"I had a flashlight." He replied instantly.

Oh. Right.

"And, here's a bonus, I didn't hurt myself stumbling through the dark." Chris said through a yawn.

"That's good. And is somebody tired?" I asked in a teasing voice, raising my eyebrow.

"Yeah. This somebody is tried." He admitted, pointing to himself.

I smirked at how he was referring to himself in the third person. "Go to sleep, okay? I'll only be a few minutes." I said, climbing out of my sleeping bag and readjusting my shirt.

"We both hear the river from here." He said, which was completely true, we could hear it. It was faint, but if I listened hard enough, I could hear the faint sounds of rushing water a few miles away — "just follow the sounds of rushing water."

I nodded and he handed me a flashlight before he unceremoniously flopped down on his sleeping bag, crawling inside of it and zipping it up all the way for some warmth. He licked his lips as his blue eyes fluttered close, head lolling to the side a bit on his pillow. I smiled a bit at that. I liked Chris when he was sleeping. He looked peaceful. I heard the unattended fire pop a little bit and sizzle, even from inside the tent. The orange glow of the fire provided a light source for inside the tent. It tinted everything yellow and amber. It was kind of calming, if I'm honest.

"See you soon, Chris." I said softly.

"Yeah, Gordie." He mumbled, not in the mood for talking any more than I was. He was extremely tired, I could see that. I didn't want to disturb his sleep, that would be rude of me. Sleep is precious, and it especially was to Chris. It was like that time where I noticed that there were no worry lines in his face whilst he was sleeping. He looked at peace again when he was asleep.

…He looked at peace in my nightmare before my father shot him. Maybe it was because he'd rather die for me than see me get killed in my dream.

I tried my hardest not to wince or whimper in the still darkness of the tent. I ran my hand over my face in a slow jaded manner before grabbing a towel from my bag - hey, I needed something to dry my body off with once I got out of the water - and crawling out of the tent. I zipped up the tent's zippers as quietly as I could before turning toward the fire to look at it. The bright orange flames greeted me with a burst of warmth that I didn't want, seeing as I was already sweating from my nightmare and the heat of the Southern night air. I silently prayed to whatever kind of God that was as I stealthily made my way through the forest. I prayed to the water God - or Gods - that the water wasn't boiling hot like the rest of the Earth was, or I'd be in soaking wet, uncomfortably warm clothes. Maybe I could take my clothes off and then freshen up. Yeah. That sounded better to me than going into the river with my clothes on. Besides, I didn't want to walk back or try to fall asleep in wet clothes. That's just uncomfortable.

I licked my lips again before turning on the flashlight, heading out into the dark forest by myself, intensely listening to and following the sounds of rushing water to get to my destination, the river.


	4. Chapter 4: Familiar Faces (Part One)

**Disclaimer: I do not own Stand By Me, or anything or anyone that you recognize, like Gordie, Chris, Ace and Eyeball. I also don't own The Outsiders or any of the book/movie's characters. They belong to their rightful owners. I only own my OC's. Well, Norman "Fuzzy" Bracowicz, Vince Desjardins, and Jack Mudgett belong to Stephen King. They are NOT my own original characters. Those three characters were in the book The Body by Stephen King, but I don't think there was cast/they were characters that were in the 1986 movie Stand by Me. So, I gave them actors and their own physical appearances, friends, family members, traits/personalities, and their own personal back stories instead of just being there.**

 **Here are the actors for Norman "Fuzzy" Bracowicz, Vince Desjardins, and Jack Mudgett:**

 **Norman "Fuzzy" Bracowicz's actor is Jared Padalecki (Fuzzy looks as Jared Padalecki did in the year 2006.)**

 **Vince Desjardins' actor is Jamie Campbell Bower.**

 **Jack Mudgett's actor is Hutch Dano.**

 **This is part one of chapter four. Part two of this chapter will look like this: Chapter Five: Pain and Bruises (Part Two).**

 **Finally, I apologize in advance if there are any spelling, grammar, punctuation, sentence structure, etcetera - mistakes. I do not have a Beta reader, so all mistakes are mine.**

 **Enjoy chapter four of Sink or Swim.**

 **XXX**

 **Chapter Four: Familiar Faces (Part One)**

 **XXX**

Stumbling around in the dark was not my idea of having fun on a Saturday night (and I'm not ashamed to admit that it still isn't), but hey, I felt so fucking disgusting, being all sweaty like that. Ugh. I felt like I needed to take five showers or something just to get the first few layers of sweat off my body. Ew.

I jumped over a tree stump, still listening to the sounds of rushing water. That was my destination. I sighed lightly, weaving my way through the trees, jumping over roots, and kicking up twigs and breaking bone dry leaves under my feet.

I eventually got to the river, smiling in relief at the fact that I found it, but panting even more now than I did when I first started my journey. Fuck, did it just get fifty degrees hotter in these damned woods, or is it just me? Jesus. In seconds, I started sweating even more. I had to get in that water as soon as possible.

Placing my flashlight on the ground, I quickly swiped my hand across my forehead before wiping away the sweat that gathered on my philtrum (the space between my upper lip and my nose). It was like a really disgusting mustache. One you wouldn't want to hope you had when you grew up. I don't really get mustaches. They're just things that grow on your upper lip. Or beards. They're not "attractive" by any stretch of the word. They're unhygienic, too, I think. Don't beards trap food particles or something? Whatever. They're gross. I'm never gonna grow a beard when I get older. ( _And to this day, I have never grown a beard or even a mustache_.)

Snagging my lower lip between my teeth, I reached down and untied my shoes and took off my sweaty socks, balling them up and placing them in my shoes. I pulled down my pants (leaving my underwear on for obvious reasons) and stripped off my shirt, wincing when I saw my skinny, extremely pale form. I could count my ribs, no problem. I turned off the flashlight to save battery, and I was instantly engulfed in darkness.

I quickly put my clothes, the flashlight, and the towel I had bought with me in in a dry spot where they wouldn't get wet before I licked my lips again, and I braced myself for the frigid icy waters to come. Stepping in, I almost yelled out loud, but bit my tongue hard at the last second. The icy cold water sent a shock up my leg, making me shiver. I stopped biting my tongue and took a deep breath and wadded in further, reminding myself to breathe in and out. It felt like there were ice chips digging into my skin.

I eventually got up to my chest in the icy cold water, and I honestly relished in the feeling of it. It took me a while for my lungs to refill with air, but I felt a lot better when I did. I wouldn't float away with the slight current, so that was good. I really didn't want to take a midnight swim and end up on some dirt bank in some unidentified patch of forest, in the dark, with no way of contacting anyone. That would be really bad.

I dunked my head under the water, but it was only for a few seconds, as the icy water felt like a thousand little cold knives digging into my head and freezing up my brain. I pushed myself up and took a deep gulp of air, shaking my head back and forth to get rid of the cold water that was streaming down my face.

I floated in the water for a minute or two, spread eagle style. I breathed in and out, listening to the sound of the water rushing past me, feeling calmer (and cleaner) than I felt a couple minutes ago. Good. The water was working.

While I was floating in the water, I started thinking back to the time when me, Teddy, Vern and Chris discovered and looked upon Ray Brower's dead body for the first time, three years ago. How I felt when I saw Ray's body - a dead _human_ boy - for the first time. I was shocked and upset, seeing how beaten up his body was with his damned shoes knocked right off his feet. Then I thought about Denny, but immediately after the thought about Denny crossed my mind, I (selfishly) thought that what happened to Ray should've happened to me instead. I should have been the one on the ground in the bushes, dead, with my shoes knocked off my feet. Ray had a full life ahead of him. Maybe his parents didn't ignore him like mine did. Maybe he had a really pretty and hilarious girlfriend, or siblings and friends who cared a lot about him. A mother and father who cared for him, appreciated him, loved him no matter what. Maybe they always stuck by him through thick and thin. Their son was torn away from the possibly (slash very likely) happy life he led. I always thought that he had a good life, and then he was violently ripped away from that life, much too soon. It depressed the hell out of me, let me tell you.

When I started crying to Chris, I talked to him about the nightmare I had, where I was at Denny's funeral again, and his coffin was lowering, and where my father turned to me and said that "it should have been me." Not Denny. Denny, who had a girlfriend. Her name was Sarah Padalecki. Denny didn't deserve to die so early in his life. Not kind, happy Denny, Denny who had his whole life ahead of him. My father said that it should have been me. And I felt like it should have. For the trip back home, that was all I could think about. What happened to Ray should've happened to me instead. _I_ should be dead. I should.

A few days after the trip to find Ray Brower's dead body was over, I tried to kill myself by hanging myself up from some high-up object… I think it was one of those non-operational gaping whatever's that was for one of my old lamps… in the center of my room. I wasn't sure what it was for, but it had always been there. But that's beside the point. Whatever that thing had been used for originally was long out of use. But sadly, it wasn't big enough for me to tie a rope around it and I knew that it couldn't support my weight, so I was stuck. I laid down on my bed, looking up at the rafter.

Wait a minute. The rafter. I had a lone rafter stretching across horizontally over my bed. My father hadn't taken the time to take it out yet. He was either too busy or something. Whatever the case, I was glad that he didn't. I could use it to kill myself.

I shot up from bed like a man on a mission, strength running through my veins. I hung up the rope I was going to use, tied a noose, and wrapped said noose around my neck, making sure that it was tight enough. I grabbed a chair and dragged it over to the center of the room, hopping up on it. I was just about to kick the chair out from under my feet when Chris had bursted into my room, damn near screaming at me to stop. I glared at him through the tears I had in my eyes, yelling at him to "go away" and "fuck off", among other things. But he refused to leave my room and let me kill myself in peace. He convinced me to get the noose off my neck and get down from the chair safely by reminding me how much he (platonically) cared for me.

I collapsed into his arms immediately after he finished his whole five speech of how much he cared for me, and how he'd be devastated if he lost his best friend in the whole universe, and all that shit. I felt tired after his speech, like I could sleep for a year and not be bothered to wake up for anything. I stumbled off the chair and folded up into his arms, and we held each other for an hour, and I cried out all my tears that I had kept in for what felt like forever. I didn't cry at Denny's funeral, and I didn't cry when I found out that he died, either. I was just… totally empty. I was like a deflated ballon. All floppy and empty and shit.

I had eventually fallen asleep once the adrenaline from psyching myself up to only kill myself wore off completely, with Chris right next to me and holding me in his arms once again. I was really tired out from everything that I had done that day, from all the emotions and tears I had kept inside of me ever since the long journey back to Castle Rock from the forest. I felt numb for a long time after my suicide attempt.

My suicide attempt, and Chris finding me about to kick the chair out from under me. in detail, went like this…

 **XXX**

 **Flashback - still in Gordie's POV**

I looked at myself in the mirror in the bright light of my bathroom, taking in my weighed down, tired appearance. I looked like my mother. My dark hair was uncombed, a thick mess and there was enough grease just laying on the surface of my hair to help start a really bad building fire if I shook my head side to side fast enough and with enough force. My eyes were puffy and red, and they looked empty. Like dark tunnels leading nowhere and stretching on forever. The clothes I was wearing were extremely bright, blatantly mocking how I felt on the inside. Like I said before, I felt extremely numb. I wanted to melt into the floor in a puddle and never re-solidify. I bit my chapped lower lip. My sickly pale skin practically glowed in the lights of my bathroom. I hadn't gotten the energy to get up out of bed for the last few weeks, except if it was for going to the bathroom, eating a small snack, clipping my fingernails and toenails when they got too long during those couple weeks, or brushing my teeth for a few minutes every day, since I had ultimately decided to "lay up" in bed. So my teeth didn't go yellow and rot and fall out of my head or something. I brushed my tongue as well, just so I didn't have really bad breath. Not like I had actually talked to anyone in those few weeks - so it was just for my personal hygiene. I hadn't showered in a long time, so I stunk like garbage that had been basking out in the 106 degree summer heat, with the humidity ranging from to fifty percent up to eighty percent, which was above average temperature and humidity even for me. And I've lived here all my life! In short, I was probably physically repulsing to look at. I hadn't gone outside in weeks, so that's why my skin looked all ghost like. I had basically ignored Chris; I only answered two ( _desperate/worried_ ) phone calls per week. I guessed that it was to make sure that I was still breathing or something. I hardly ate in those last couple weeks, too. Once again, I was way too skinny for my age to be considered "normal". I hadn't spoken to my mother or father ( _or Chris, or anyone else_ ) unless it was absolutely necessary. Although I did drink so much water. I drank _so_ much water during that time. I'm still surprised that I hadn't turned into a puddle of pure lukewarm tap water. ( _Ugh. Gross_.)

I dragged my hand down my face, then I walked out of my bathroom, and my bedroom, and turned off the light on my way out the door. I walked downstairs slowly and carefully, as if I was a turtle walking on thin ice. I ignored my mother and father, who were both sitting on the couch in my living room, consuming mindless TV, their eyes fixated on the screen in front of them. I could hear the chatter from the screen, they were watching one of my favorite TV shows. I didn't bother to stop and watch. I walked out of my house and went around the side of it, heading towards the back of my house, where my mother's impressive looking garden and laundry line were. And the tool shed, which was my destination. It was locked, so I grabbed the key hidden under one of the empty flower pots and I opened it up. I tried not to cough or hell - even stop breathing - at the hot stuffy air that flew at me. It was from not opening the shed up in a few months. I made my way inside.

My father had seemingly materialized into thin air, but I heard his truck engine roar to life. I could see the bright red paint job on the car shine in the sunshine as he peeled out of the driveway. I didn't know where he was going. As long as he wasn't coming back anytime soon, I'd be fine with it. He'd come back and see my dead body swinging from my room. Would he even care? Probably not. I highly doubted that my deadbeat mother would care either. Just like always.

Speaking of my deadbeat mother, she was at the sink when I came into the kitchen from the outside world, cleaning some dishes that had been left out from breakfast, which was an hour ago. Suddenly she set the glass cup she was cleaning and stared out the window. Her posture was rigged, and the air in the kitchen turned somber. Just from her posture, I knew that she wouldn't be snapping out of her "depression/vacant moment" anytime soon.

Anyway, I had successfully found what I needed. It was at the back of the storage shed, under a bag of fertilizer. I could see it sticking out, so with some effort I shoved that out of the way. I grabbed the thick rope, which was what I was looking for. Hauling it over my shoulder, I quickly walked out the shed, and I shut and locked it with the key again, sticking it under the flower pot again.

I stared at my mother for a second before I very casually walked back upstairs, breathing in and out slowly. The rope was thick and a little heavy, especially since I was so weak from lack of eating anything in a long time.

Snagging my lower lip between my teeth, I kicked my bedroom door shut loudly, but I knew that my mother wouldn't care, seeing as she's having a "depression/vacant moment" I also knew that she wouldn't check up on me. And my father had just left the house to… do whatever it was he had to do.

Perfect. I could carry this plan out.

I set the rope on my bed and dragged my desk chair to where I was going to hang myself up from. For easier access to the rafter, I turned so that I could face my bedroom door. Next, I grabbed the rope again and threw it up to the rafter ( _it took four tries to successfully do that_ ), and I took my sweet ass time to tie it tight enough so it wouldn't fall down, then I made a suitable enough noose for my head to slip through with a little difficulty. It took a while to perfect it (mainly because I kept messing it up because of my sweaty hands) but I got it eventually. I started crying suddenly, and I couldn't stop the tears, no matter how hard I tired. I sobbed pathetically, and it blurred my vision so much that I stumbled right off my chair with a noise that was a mix between a choked sob and a loud yelp surprise. I unceremoniously landed on my ass, hard. I winced, licking my lower lip.

Damn it.

I let the tears fall from my eyes and slip down my cheeks because I did not want them to blur my vision anymore. Once I was certain that I had cried all my tears out, I hopped back on the chair, putting my head through the noose. Already, I could feel that my plan would work. It got a little harder to breathe.

Letting out a choked noise ( _it was either from either sobbing or starting to actually freaking suffocate, but I wasn't sure_ ), I clasped my hands behind my back firmly to make sure that I wouldn't automatically try to slip my head out of the noose.

Little did I know, Chris was on his way to check up on me.

Anyway, here was Chris's point of view. ( _He told me his side a few weeks after my suicide attempt_.)

 **XXX**

 **Chris's POV (still in the flashback)**

I tip-toed my way down the stairs, not dating to breathe as I slipped my house key into my pocket. I bit my lip. I passed by my father's chair. He was passed out drunk. Beer bottles littered the spot around him. An ashtray was on the coffee table in front of him, with four snuffed cigarettes, down to the last part of it. My father was a heavy smoker. He died in 1965 ( _two years later when I realized that there was something very, very,_ very _wrong with my best friend, and when me and Gordie had our first real fight as best friends_ ). It was only six years after me, Gordie, Vern and Teddy went on that long trip to find Ray Brower's dead body in the summer of 1959. We were all twelve years old during that summer, but we were on the cusp of being thirteen years old.

I was eighteen years old when my father's death happened. It was sudden, but it was to be expected. He drank himself into a stupor and then decided that it was a smart idea to go on a car chase throughout the "slum" area of town while high on illegal drugs he had gotten off from some African American bum, or smoking something really strong, or whatever. Apparently he crashed into a brick building and died immediately on impact. My father was not a nice person, not at all. He got what was coming to him, and you know what they say - karma is a bitch.

Like me, Gordie was eighteen years old during the time of my father's death. My older siblings Richard ("Eyeball"), Veronica, Brandon, Tyler, and the younger twins Julia and Carl were all still alive when my father died. Eyeball was twenty three years old, Veronica was twenty two years old, Brandon was twenty one years old, Tyler was twenty years old, I was eighteen years old (as stated above a few sentences ago), and my younger siblings Julia and Carl were both fifteen years old at that time. Julia and Carl were younger than me by three years. My father was forty eight years old when he stupidly met his own demise. My mother was forty three years old when my father died, five years younger than my father.

The crappy excuse of our family TV was playing a movie. Then it flickered to static filled again from where it rested on a small wooden cabinet, plugged in to an outlet that was hidden by said wooden cabinet. Well, the TV alternated between the movie that was playing at that time and that ugly, horrible static sound and that damned white fuzz more often than not.

I watched the TV and the TV static, transfixed on it like an idiot. Little flickers of static would appear sometimes, distorting the quality of the movie and the voices, music, or sound affects in said movie. I would have to physically drag my butt into the living room and hit the side of the TV to get the TV working again, properly this time, where there would be no static or other distortions. But I didn't feel that it was worth my time or the extra energy to walk over there and do that. So I left it alone. Besides, my father wouldn't be waking up anytime soon anyway, and my older siblings and Julia and Carl were all out and about in town, doing their own thing. And as for Eyeball… well, I wasn't exactly sure where Eyeball was. If I went with what my gut was telling me, he was probably hanging out with his gang the Cobras, causing trouble no doubt. I think my mother was at work, most likely avoiding us and her mess of a marriage and equally messy (and depressing) home life. Which was just freaking great.

I shook my head and walked out of my front door, shutting it louder than I had intended to. I jumped at the loud noise, my heart lurching in my chest from the unexpected burst of adrenaline I got. I half expected to hear my father bumbling toward the door like the asshole drunk he was, but he didn't. I exhaled shakily and walked down my porch steps, towards Gordie's house. I wanted - no, I seriously _needed_ \- to check up on Gordie. He wasn't answering my calls. He was basically ignoring me for weeks on end after our trip to find Ray Brower's dead body, save for a couple twice-a-week phone calls. He would always pick up my calls on Sunday and Wednesday. Never on Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, Friday or Saturday. Strictly on Sunday and Wednesday. Which sucked and was inconvenient for me, because any other time I called the LaChance house (which was every single day), Mrs. LaChance would answer the phone and say to me in an almost robotic tone that "Gordie couldn't answer the phone right now", or that "he's not here Chris", which was total bullshit. I knew for a fact that he was inside his house, holed up in his room or curled up on the couch or something, ignoring me for days on end. It's not like he had any other friends to hang out with. Teddy and Vern drifted apart from us only three days after we found Ray's body.

If I'm being honest, I had grown really annoyed, tired and wary of this really strange behavior from Gordie. Whenever I tried to go over his house to check up on him, his mother or father answered. Never Gordie, and he was the one I was looking for in the first place. They disliked me with a passion, especially Mr. LaChance. The person that greeted me at the front door would vary. If it was Mrs. LaChance, she would sometimes greet me with a thin smile or usher me inside and then go back to being the vacant zombie she usually was.

But if it was Mr. LaChance that answered the door when I rang the doorbell or knocked on the door, ( _and it was more often him than Gordie's mother_ ) he would always slam the door in my face after glaring at me like I was nothing but dirt beneath his shoe, and he'd almost growl out answers to me whenever I asked a question, no matter what I asked. Hell, if I told him that I saw a cow wearing a leotard and smoking a pipe, he'd tell me to go home in that gravely, angry tone that he had. His brown eyes went from curious when he opened the door, to annoyed one second, then to full of hate another second whenever he looks down at me.

Now, Gordie may have Mr. LaChance's brown eyes, but Gordie's eyes are so full of warmth that could fuel a fire and probably make someone with an icy heart melt, curiosity that could make even the most grown up of people be heavily affected by his child-like curiousness, and intelligence far superior than a normal twelve year old kid going on thirteen year old would have. I'm being serious. On one side, Gordie's eyes are full good emotions, and then Mr. LaChance's brown eyes are full of malice and anger. It's really a stark contrast between the two.

It's like they're not even related.

Anyway, I went the long way to Gordie's house, because I wanted to get some exercise and feel the warm sun on my skin. I passed by Mr. Minkus' flower shop, briefly glancing at the multicolored flowers in the display cases before moving on.

I walked up the porch steps of the LaChance house, bracing myself for the onslaught of mean grunts and death glares from Mr. LaChance. I rang the doorbell, biting my lower lip between my teeth gently, my foot tapping impatiently.

When there was no answer, I frowned. I rung the doorbell again, and waited. Still, there was no answer. I noticed that one side of the black mesh fence was wide open. Curious, I walked into the backyard. Gordie's mother was on her knees, pulling out what I assumed to be carrots. "Mrs. LaChance?" I asked, startling her.

She whipped around, her hand on her heart. She must have been completely engrossed in her task if she didn't hear me come up behind her. Huh. "Oh my goodness, Christopher!" She breathed. I tried not to look annoyed by the fact that she used my full name instead of Chris. I had that same pet peeve as Gordie whenever someone called him Gordon instead of Gordie. "You scared me. Don't sneak up on me like that!" She scolded, standing up and flexing her fingers.

I hung my head, having the decency to look shameful. "I'm sorry, ma'am." I mumbled.

"It's fine." She said shortly, brushing dirt away from her palms. "What are you doing here?" Her voice was emotionless. Robotic. It sent a chill down my spine despite the heat of the day.

"I wanted to check up on Gordie." I replied, motioning vaguely upwards, to where his bedroom window was. The tree was in the way, but I knew that Mrs. LaChance knew where I was pointing. "Do you know where he is?" I asked, expecting one of the same damn answers she constantly gave me over the phone whenever I asked about the whereabouts of Gordie freaking LaChance.

"He's upstairs in his room." It is safe to say that I was _not_ expecting that answer, let alone any. I was expecting to be ignored completely. "I think he's reading, or playing one of his board games, or taking a nap, or something. But… anyway, I doubt he's busy with anything at the moment, Christopher." She said, glancing up at his closed bedroom window. The tree was still in the way, but I could see that the blinds were drawn, so we couldn't see what was going on in there. The window was probably locked as well. No sense in wasting a ton of energy on climbing that damned tree, only to find the window locked. I'd have to climb back down. Not worth any energy.

"Do you mind if I go up and see him?" I questioned.

"Sure, you can go see him. I'll be down here if you need me. Gordie's father is out at the grocery store, picking up a few things. Go on ahead." She said, smiling thinly at me. It was like thin paper stretching over liver-spotted-dotted pale wood. Her eyes were empty, though. She wasn't quite there, I could tell.

I just nodded my head. Without saying anything to her I headed inside through the back door, closing it behind me gently. Mrs. LaChance went back to picking the carrots, completely engrossed in her task once again, but it was so much more slowed than it had been before. She was having a moment or something.

I didn't know how Gordie stood it. Or maybe he wasn't used to it yet. Whatever the case, I knew that it either hurt him or angered him whenever he looked at her. He and I have the same dislike of deadbeat mothers and shitty deadbeat fathers.

Shaking my head to clear my head of that thought, I headed up the stairs, the carpeted floorboards creaking under my weight. The LaChance house always made me feel safe. I felt a lot safer here than in my own house, but that's not a total surprise.

I pushed open the door to Gordie's bedroom, and what I saw with my own two eyes shocked me to my very core. My eyes grew wide, and my heart lurched in my chest at the sight. I felt sick and scared. Gordie was standing on a chair, a rope dangling from the single rafter in his room, his head shoved in a well made noose. His hands were firmly clasped in behind his body. His brown eyes were downcast, trained on the floor in front of him. His greasy brown hair was hanging down limply. He was going to kick that chair out from under him, and…

No. I wouldn't let him do that.

"Gordie!" I screamed, scaring the shit out of him. If I hadn't gotten to the door when I did, or if I had gotten to the LaChance house a couple minutes later… Gordie… Gordie would be dead.

 **XXX**

 **Gordie's POV (still in the flashback)**

If I could move my head (or my whole body) without suffocating, I'm pretty sure that I would have turned my whole away from Chris in shame.

How the fuck could I have forgotten to lock the door?! Jesus holy Christ, I am such a freaking _idiot_!

"Gordie!" Chris screamed again, his face pale. "Stop! What are you doing?!"

I looked up at him. My greasy hair moved back out of my face, giving me a clear view of my best friend standing in my doorway. "What does it look like?" I snapped irritably, anger spiking up in my veins at being caught at the last possible second. "I'm trying to kill myself." I said, the noose wrapped around my neck making it a little difficult to speak.

"Why?!" He asked, shutting the door behind him and stepping towards me.

"You know why." I said, feeling tears welling up in my eyes. I tried to blink them away, but it didn't work. "My parents-"

"You think they'd want _this_?!" He demanded. "For you to kill yourself in your fucking room?!"

"They wouldn't give a shit anyway." I growled, glaring at him through the tears in my eyes. A single tear slid down my cheek. "They've never cared about me." I knew I was being selfish, but I didn't give a shit.

"They might not care about you, but _I_ care about you! If you kill yourself, I'm going to be really fucking depressed!" He cried.

I rolled my eyes. "You'd get over it eventually, Chris." I huffed out. The noose around my neck felt like it was getting tighter.

"That's where you're wrong." He growled. "Gordie, if you kill yourself, I'm going to spend the rest of my pathetic life beating myself up over it!" He shouted, his ocean blue eyes wide with fear and desperation. He sounded sincere.

I scoffed bitterly. "There's no point in doing that, Chris. I'm nothing to cry over. I'm a nothing."

"You're a _somebody_!" He shouted. The sudden increase of his voice made me wince. "Now get down from there! Please, Gordie!"

"Fuck off." I snapped, narrowing my eyes.

"Not a chance in Hell, man. Not until you get that noose off your neck and jump down from that damn chair safely." He retorted.

"I-"

"Do you seriously want me to spend the rest of my life crying over you?" He exploded. "Do you want me to beat myself up for my best friend's - for *your* death - wishing that I could've seen the signs earlier, that I could have helped you in some way?"

"Chris…" I didn't want that, not in a billion fucking years. "No. I don't." I whispered.

"Then please, Gordie… Please get down from there." He whimpered, standing directly in front of me now.

Slowly, and with the help of Chris, we removed my head from the noose after a minute. I hopped off the chair and flung my arms around him tightly and cried until I couldn't anymore.

Chris Chambers held me in his arms through my whole breakdown, his arms never once leaving my body, which were wrapped securely around my body.

Our bond as best friends got so much stronger that day. It was like we were joined at the hip. Chris was my figurative guiding light in the darkness.

 **XXX**

Anyway, I had been floating around in that cold water for more than twenty minutes now. I hadn't drifted away too far from the bank, so that was good.

I dunked my head under the water, letting the icy water make my hair move. I could feel it. It felt really good.

I stayed under the water until my lungs were on fire from lack of oxygen, and when it felt like I was about to pass out if I didn't go up for air. I broke the surface loudly, gasping for air. Water droplets streamed down my face and neck and my collarbones. "Shit." I coughed, swimming over to the bank again. I squeezed out the water from my hair and dried off as fast as I could.

After I dried off completely I slid my clothes back on and placed the towel around my neck, the two ends of the towel dangling down my pale body. I scooped up the flashlight and flicked it back on. The beam of light disappeared in the dark, dark waters of the river.

I shook my head and started to walk back to the general direction of the tent.

Suddenly, a twig snapped near me. I swiveled around towards the noise, narrowing my eyes. I held my breath, waiting with tense shoulders for it to happen again. When I didn't hear anything else after a few long drawn out seconds of silence, I once again stumbled through the trees some more, towards our cute little campsite.

Another twig snapped, and suddenly I could hear voices. Older voices. I couldn't tell what age they were, but something tugged at my gut when one of the men said:

"You think he's really gonna let an opportunity like this slip by, Charlie?"

I froze. I knew that voice. It was-

"No, I don't Fuzzy. And you know that we just had to go with him. We're a gang after all." Charlie Hogan replied.

"True. And look where we are now boys," Fuzzy said in a slightly annoyed tone. "Stumbling around the forest in the dead of night with our heads up our asses."

Shit. Norman "Fuzzy" Bracowicz was a highly respected member of Ace's gang, and one of the most feared teenagers in Castle Rock. He could be really dangerous when provoked. He lived in a fairly big town called Puako, which was four counties over from our small town Castle Rock. Fuzzy was the "prime intimidator" of the Cobras. He had dark brown hair that fell a little below his ears and dark brown eyes, and tan skin. Standing at a whopping 6'7", weighing in over 180 pounds of almost all pure muscle, you could clearly tell why Ace liked having his gigantic ass around. Fuzzy was a scary badass motherfucker, let me tell you. His nickname was not because he was a soft cuddly teddy bear. He was the exact opposite actually - hell I'm sure that he could quickly tear a man in half if he wanted to, and he wouldn't even break a sweat over it. His nickname was given to him by Ace when he became a permanent member of the Cobras. I'm sure that Ace wanted people to believe that Fuzzy wasn't intimidating when he bragged about him to the people of Castle Rock or whatever small town he was in, never revealing any true details about Fuzzy, but then watch the fear/nervousness erupt on their faces when they actually got to _meet_ Fuzzy. Or just watch as they go pale and shit their pants, I don't know.

"Shut up, Fuzzy." Another voice growled out. That was Billy.

Fucking great.

Still, they sounded a little closer to me now. Shit shit shit shit. This wasn't good, not at all. I heard even more voices near me now. I heard Vern's older brother Billy, Eyeball, Vince Desjardins, Ace him-god-damn-self, and Jack Mudgett's voices, all overlapping one another, making it hard to pick up individual remarks on whatever it was they were talking about at that moment. They switched topics a lot. One second they'd be talking about a new car they'd want to get to "getting head" in a drive through movie theater's concession stand bathroom.

Gross.

Vince Desjardins and Jack Mudgett had rejoined the gang after taking a short break from the gang for personal reasons. They're cousins, but they may as well be brothers. It's almost like they're joined at the hip. Vince had dark blonde hair that fell to his shoulders and dark forest green eyes. He was 6'2" in height and weighed around 129 pounds. He was tan, too, from working out in the fields and staying outside all day to "check out honeybunnies", or something like that. Vince was also on his high school's basketball team. His height really made him a star athlete on said team, and the fact that he was intimidating as hell to anyone shorter than 5'6". On the other hand, Jack had dark brown hair and light blue eyes. He was significantly shorter than Vince, around 5'8" in height and he weighed only around 117 pounds. He was pale, but that's mainly due to his mother's side of the family being pale. His family were from Ireland or something, but they all had dark, dark brown hair. I'm one hundred percent sure that all the girls in their high school wanted to date Vince. Vince and Jack didn't go to my high school, AKA Castle Rock High School. They went to Longhorn Green High School. Longhorn is only three counties over from Castle Rock, so Vince and Jack would always meet up with the Cobras here in Castle Rock.

( _During the time where I'm writing about the Cobras stumbling around in the woods like a bunch of stupid guys, Vince and Jack were both eighteen years old. Billy was nineteen years old, Eyeball was twenty years old and Ace was twenty three. The Chambers kids' father would eventually die three years after the Cobras' little trek through the woods in the dead of night_.)

"So, why the fuck are we out here anyway, Ace?" Billy questioned, sounding genuinely curious. "Stumbling around in this dark-ass forest at twelve at night?" I blinked. I hadn't realized that it was that late at night.

"Because I fucking felt like it, you pantywaist asshole. Besides, there's nothing wrong with a little bit of-" I heard a loud resounding CRACK and bird fly out of a tree, "FUCKING HOLY SHIT." He yelled as he crashed into something. Maybe he ran head first into tree or he tripped over a rock. A part of me hoped he cracked his skull open, while the other part of me knew that my hope for him to get injured wasn't likely. And can I just say damn, because Ace still had his temper, the one he had when I was twelve years old, just a lot worse. Which wasn't good.

"You okay, Ace?" Jack asked.

"Fine." He grunted.

Okay, enough hanging around. I had to get out of there and fast. I sprinted towards the campsite now, fear and adrenaline making me run faster, to safety. I bursted out into the clearing of the campground, desperately unzipping the tent with slightly shaky fingers, panting harshly. I saw that Chris was sleeping still, his back turned to me. I had to wake him up and alert him of what was going on, and now. Before they got any closer.

"Chris!" I hissed loudly. "Chris, wake the hell up!"

Chris stirred awake. A sigh left his lips before he flipped over and turned towards me, eyes still closed. "Aw come on Gordie, why'd you have to wake me up?" He complained, cracking open an eye to glare at me. His voice was thick with sleep.

"We've got a problem." I said.

"A problem?" He asked, rubbing sleep out of his eyes. "What's the matter, man?"

"A big one." I said, then realized that I needed to elaborate. "I think Ace and his gang are looking for us."

He stared at me fully now. "You're fucking with me. Stop that." All signs of hazy-induced sleep evaporated from his face, replaced with annoyance and, had I looked hard enough at that time, some fear.

I looked right into his blue eyes. "I'm being honest."

"Bullshit." He huffed out.

"Bull-true." I retorted, narrowing my eyes at him slightly, then stopped.

"I don't believe you. How do you know this, anyway?"

"But why would they come after us now?" He asked, slipping out of his sleeping bag and fixing his shirt. "We haven't done anything wrong." And that's one hundred percent true. We hadn't stolen anything from anybody or tried to stupidly claim another dead kid's body.

"I know, I know we haven't Chris." I mumbled, licking my lips. "Which is why I'm both confused and worried."

"Wait. Hold up. Do you think he wants revenge for our claiming of that kid's body?" He asked, his face completely serious.

"What, with Ray?" I questioned.

"Yeah." He said. I mentally smacked myself in the head for my stupidity. We hadn't gone on any other trips to find any more dead kids our age.

"Maybe." I sighed, then cocked my head to the left, my brows furrowing. "But there's two things I don't understand. Why would he wait three years for revenge? Why now of all times?" I questioned rhetorically.

Chris grimaced. "Hell if I know. I don't think he'd come right out and say it, either."

"Probably not, man." I answered, exhaling shakily. "We should pack up and get the hell out of here."

"Yeah. Good idea." Chris agreed, standing up.

I nodded, then moved over and rolled up my sleeping bag. Chris quickly followed my lead, haphazardly throwing everything he brought with him into his bag. I did the same, then quickly unzipped the tent with a speed I didn't know I possessed, keeping my eyes trained to the ground so I didn't trip over the part of the tent where it's about two inches of grey then the zipper. You know what part of the tent I'm talking about, right? Yeah, of course you do. Anyway, I turned around and quickly noted that Chris was tucked away in a corner somewhere, kneeling down and shoving his pillow into his bag.

I sighed. Now I just had to put out the fire and we'd be all set. Moving over quickly, I grabbed a canteen full of water and licked my lips, taking a small drink from it. Then I got to work with putting out the campfire. When I got close enough to the campfire, the heat was almost too much for me.

First, I drowned the campfire with water until it was put out. Smoke rose up and the fire hissed and sizzled loudly as it cooled off and turned to nothing but ash. I instantly felt a little bit colder, though it wasn't like I was in freaking Antartica. Even though the air that surrounded me was really, really warm I felt a little better due to the fire not being there anymore. The campsite was encased in darkness instantly, the only thing that brought any light was the dying white hot embers and the flashlight I brought with me. Next, once I was sure that the fire was completely out and that I wouldn't get burned, I quickly mixed the ashes and embers with soft, non-burnt soil while using the flashlight as a, well, light source. Freaking duh. With one hand holding the flashlight, the other hand quickly but very carefully scraped all partially-burned sticks and logs, just to make sure that all the hot embers were off them. I did that successfully. There were none. I heard Chris shuffling around in the tent, getting things ready so we could leave as soon as possible. We didn't need words or anything. We were just doing what had to be done. Sometimes me and Chris were like a well-oiled machine, or it's like we're the same person. We worked as one most times. It was kind of weird, but kind of cool at the same time. People in Castle Rock used to say that "that lowlife Chris Chambers kid and that LaChance kid were almost like one human being". It was true in some sense. We were occasionally like one human being, rather than two separate ones.

Going back to the task at hand that required me to move swiftly in case I didn't want to get found by the Cobras ( _and I REALLY didn't want that to happen_ ), I quickly stirred the embers after they are covered with water and made sure that everything was wet. Next I cautiously felt the coals, embers, and any partially burned wood with my hands. If I did this correctly, everything (including the rock fire ring) should be cool to the touch. I was happy to find that it was. I felt under the ring of rocks we had placed around the fire to make sure that there were no embers underneath. There were none, thankfully. Which made my job a hell of a lot easier. Even though I thought that I was done with putting out the campfire, I decided to take an extra minute to wait. I took another small drink of water and then added more water to the pile of ashes and charred wood to make sure that the fire was completely out. No more smoke or embers emitted from the fire. It was perfectly safe. Finally, with the flashlight I very quickly checked the entire campsite for possible sparks or embers, because it only takes one to start a forest fire. I really didn't want that happening. There weren't any. Which was good.

As I did my task of successfully putting out the campfire, I remembered what my father said to me and Denny a long time ago when we went camping: "Remember boys," he said, "if a campfire is too hot to touch, it is too hot to leave. You should always make sure that the campfire is put out properly." And that stuck with me, I guess.

I walked back inside the tent and continued to get my things in order. I zipped up the tent again, and the beam of light from the flashlight made a circular white spot to the left side of the tent appear. Chris was just finishing up.

"Chris?" I said, keeping my voice low. I turned back to him and moved towards my stuff. I kept the flashlight trained on him though, even though he had one of his own that he was currently using as _his_ light source.

He looked over at me, and through the bright light of the flashlight, I could see Chris's ocean blue eyes twinkling. "Yeah?" He kept his voice low too. He zipped up his bag.

"We need to get the tent down. Right now."

Chris cursed quietly. He knew I was right. "Damn it, how the hell are we gonna do this quick enough? It took us a fucking hour and a half just to get this damn tent set up, and that was in the daytime."

I nodded, now annoyed as well. Shit. "I know, I know Chris."

Chris bit his lip. "Come on. We'd better hurry up."

I nodded. "Yeah."

 **XXX**

With a grunt, I shoved the completely folded up tent into the proper place in the biggest bag that I brought with me. Chris was a couple feet away from me, making sure that he had everything in order. A flashlight was on the ground right next to him. I couldn't hear the Cobras' voices anymore, which was both and good and bad thing. Good because it meant that they weren't anywhere near us. Bad because it meant that we had no idea where they were as of that moment.

Shit.

"You ready Gordie?" Chris asked, standing up and slinging his bag over his back.

"Yeah." I answered, yanking my bags over my shoulders. "Let's get the fuck out of here."

"Good idea, man." He said, and we started sprinting out of the clearing, not speaking to each other to conserve energy.

As we were running through the dark forest, I kept thinking back to that day three years ago in the woods, when Ace promised that him and his gang would come back and extract their revenge on me and Chris for our showdown over Ray Brower's dead body. When it was over and we had returned home, I lived in fear for months on end. I was almost always expecting them to strike any day, at any given time. When I was helping my mother with her garden and hanging up clothes on the clothes-line. When I was walking down the street for some reason or going to pick up fucking milk and a goddamn loaf of white bread from the store. Hell, when I went over to Chris's house to pick him up and go to the treehouse, which was well after the "isolation period" of my life. I was jumpy, wary, and scared a lot of the time. Then I eventually stopped worrying about them. They were completely forgotten in my mind.

Panting, I ran through the trees, avoiding stumps and rocks and fallen logs like it was my job. Chris followed closely behind me, panting a bit from the exertion. Coupled with the bags we were carrying, the relentless Southern nighttime heat, and trying our hardest not to trip over anything, it took a lot out of us just to sprint a mile.

I heard the Cobras' voices now. They sounded like they're a little further away than they were once I first heard them coming back from the river. But that didn't mean that we were in the clear quite yet.

"Wait. Wait. Gordie, stop." Chris wheezed out.

I skidded to a halt instantly, wondering what was wrong as I turned to look at my best friend. Chris was doubled over, his hands on his knees, panting harshly. He tilted to the side and rested up against a tree, panting with his mouth open. My own mouth was very dry.

"What is it?" I asked through my rough panting and dry throat. "You alright?"

"Yeah. Just… just give me a minute to catch my breath." He breathed, still bent over.

I nodded and took the time to catch my breath as well. I leaned up against a tree, my left side resting on the tree and my body turned towards Chris, watching as he took a couple deep breaths to steady himself. I heard him swallow.

"We can't stay here long." I advised in a low voice, glancing sharply around at the trees surrounding us. "We need to keep moving."

"I know Gordie." He said after three minutes of silence while he was catching his breath. He stood up properly and nodded at me. "You ready?"

"Yeah. Now, come on." I said.

He nodded and we took off running towards the general location of the main street where we had entered the forest. I knew where the main entrance/exit was. I knew this forest like the back of my hand. I've been coming out here in the woods since I was very little, when Denny was still alive, with my family. We didn't do much out here but just walk through the forest and fish and all that fun shit. We only went camping three times as a family. That was it. ( _I highly cherish those moments still when I'm camping with my wife and my own kids_.)

"Come on Chris." I panted. "We're almost there! Just a little farther!" I cried.

Chris yelled out a "got it, Gordie" through his harsh panting, struggling to keep in pace with me. But he knew as well as I did that slowing down/stopping now would make it even harder for us to continue moving.

"Come on, Chris, let's-" I wasn't looking where I was going. I didn't notice the bright flashlights shining in my faces, and I crashed into someone. I bounced off them and crashed to the ground, and my ass hurt. Bright lights shone down on me, blinding me.

"GORDIE!" Chris screamed, skidding to a halt. He and I froze as I stared up into the faces of the Cobras, specifically Eyeball Chambers and Ace Merrill himself. Jack, Vince, Billy, Eyeball, Fuzzy, and Charlie all fanned out in a row a half a foot behind Ace, so it looked like Ace was the grand Alpha male and the boys behind him were pack members. Like wolves.

I tried to swallow past my dry throat, but I only ended up coughing weakly. Panic seized up inside of me instantly. Shit. This wasn't good. Chris was frozen in place behind me. Me and Chris were breathing a little heavily.

"Well, well." Ace grinned down at me, looking down at me like he was the cat and I was the mouse. He still looked the same after three years, except his spiked up hair was blonder, he was a lot taller, his voice had gotten just a little bit deeper, and he had more filled out muscles. He looked more and more intimidating now than he had when we were twelve. His dark blue eyes glanced up from me to Chris, who was glaring darkly at him. "Look who we've managed to catch, boys." He smirked, shining his flashlight between the two of us.

 _Fuck_.


	5. Chapter 5: Pain & Bruises (Part Two)

**Disclaimer: As you all know, I do not own the movie Stand By Me or the novel The Body by Stephan King, or anything or anyone that you recognize from that book/movie, like Gordie, Chris, Ace and Eyeball. I also don't own The Outsiders or any of the book/movie's characters, like Ponyboy, Dally and Steve. They belong to their rightful owners. I only own my OC's and whatever else you don't recognize.**

 **Again, here are the actors for Norman "Fuzzy" Bracowicz, Vince Desjardins, and Jack Mudgett:**

 **Norman "Fuzzy" Bracowicz's actor is Jared Padalecki (Fuzzy looks as Jared Padalecki did in the year 2006.)**

 **Vince Desjardins' actor is Jamie Campbell Bower.**

 **Jack Mudgett's actor is Hutch Dano.**

 **Here are the actors for the Greaser gang:**

 **Ponyboy Curtis's actor is C. Thomas Howell. (Ponyboy Curtis from the Outsiders.)**

 **Sodapop Curtis's actor is Rob Lowe. (Sodapop Curtis from the Outsiders.)**

 **Dallas "Dally" Winston's actor is Matt Dillion. (Dally Winston from the Outsiders.)**

 **Johnny Cade's actor is Ralph Macchio. (Johnny Cade from the Outsiders.)**

 **Steve Randle's actor is Tom Cruise. (Steve Randle from the Outsiders.)**

 **Darrel "Dally" Curtis's actor is Patrick Swayze. (Dally Curtis from the Outsiders.)**

 **Keith "Two-Bit" Matthews's actor is Emilio Estevez. (Keith "Two-Bit" Matthews from the Outsiders.)**

 **As I said before, I do not own the Outsiders or the characters, or anything associated with the Outsiders, including the Outsiders book by SE Hilton and the 1983 Outsiders movie, which was directed by Francis Ford Coppola. All characters and anything else that is associated with the Outsiders in both the book and the movie go to their rightful owners.**

 **Finally, I apologize in advance if there are any spelling, grammar, punctuation, sentence structure, etcetera - mistakes.**

 **Enjoy chapter five of Sink or Swim.**

 **XXX**

 **Chapter Five: Pain and Bruises (Part Two)**

 **XXX**

Shit. We were so utterly fucked. Actually, we were more than "utterly fucked". I'm sure that we were going to be six feet under the fucking hot ass ground when they were done with us. I've been in a couple of nasty pickles before in my teenage years, like that time when I thought it was a good goddamned idea to smoke some weak-ass joint on my roof ( _here's what happened: basically, my father caught me smoking that joint and he dragged me downstairs and grounded me for three weeks, (which I was fine with, I could handle that), although what really got me going was when he screamed that he would ban me from seeing Chris, which in turn launched me to go into my "defend my best friend" instincts - which is where I would always, ALWAYS defend Christopher Alexander Chambers no matter what was happening or who was crapping all over his name, hell I'd yell the fucking President of the United States of America could be talking shit about Chris and I'd yell at the motherfucking_ President of the United States of America.

Anyway, we immediately launched into a full out screaming fest to defend my best friend's honor and all that shit, especially since he wasn't here to defend it himself. Although, during those three weeks that I was grounded and "banned from seeing Chris", Chris would always sneak in to my room every single day of my three-week-grounding - climbing up the tree and entering through my bedroom window; Chris would never use the front fucking door, he'd always either go around back or climb up the tree that was in my backyard ( _now that I think about it, I don't think that Chris ever actually used the front door to enter my damned childhood house EVER - I had a sneaking suspicion that the reason he didn't want to enter my house through the front door was mainly due to avoid my asshole father who hated his guts, and to avoid my mother's absent stares and whatnot - at night or whenever my parents were out doing whatever it is they did when they were out of the house, and we'd lay there on my bed together and talk about whatever was on our minds that day._ ) but the worst pickle I had been in was when the Cobras found us in the woods during the weekend of 1962.

God damn it.

Ace smirked down at us, putting his flashlight down and clicking it off. I wasn't as blinded as I originally was anymore, but there were still six flashlights blinding me. Every time I blinked, violet and blue dots appeared for a millisecond before disappearing.

I didn't move an inch as Ace stepped forward and bent down to my level. "Hello, LaChance." He sneered, dark blue eyes glaring into my brown ones. His eyes were like the ice in the Antarctic. Cold and emotionless, with no signs of warmth seeping through. It almost made me want to head butt him. Almost.

I glared at him. "Hello, Merrill." I mocked. "You little fucking maggot inside of dog shit."

He simply grinned icily. "Kid grew some balls, huh, guys?" He asked to the other gang members.

Vince cocked his head to the side. "You sure about that? He's still so young."

Eyeball snorted. "I'm pretty sure he's still wearing diapers."

I glared at him. "Fuck you."

Eyeball rose his eyebrow. "I'm pretty sure you'd rather get fucked by my little brother right here." He pointed at Chris, who was glaring at the lot of them.

I narrowed my eyes dangerously at him. And for the record, in case you're wondering, I did not have a crush on my best friend. I didn't, honest. And I sure as hell didn't want to "get fucked" by Chris, my _best friend_. I'm not goddamned gay, and I was one hundred percent sure that Chris was not gay either.

"You shut your fucking mouth." Me and Chris growled out at the same time. My cheeks burned, and not just with the heat of the night air anymore. I was blushing, and really goddamned angry at the same time. I was also blushing because of the crudeness of Eyeball's words.

Eyeball smirked. "Oh wow. Did I hit a little too close to home, Gordie?"

I glared at him, my jaw clenched. I did not have a crush on Chris. I was not a fucking homosexual. Why didn't people - mainly when I was a younger teenager - understand that _I was not motherfucking gay_?! Resisting the urge to throw my flashlight at his face as hard as I could, I quickly turned off it and shoved it into the top of my bag. Behind me, I heard Chris do the same. We were on the same page then. No sense in wasting our own flashlights' battery. Let these asshats waste their own flashlight battery, for all I cared. "I'm gonna kick your ass, Chambers." I threatened Eyeball.

Eyeball tilted his head. "Ooh, I'm so scared, I'm shaking in my boots."

The Cobras snickered at that.

"Why don't you do us all a favor and eat chicken shit?" Chris growled as he very quickly zipped up his bag and slung it back over his shoulder as quick as lightning. God damn, his friend instincts were at "maximum strength", weren't they? He took a small step forward, so he was next to me.

Charlie rolled his eyes. "Shut up, Chambers."

"Why don't you make me, asshat?" He snarked. His ocean blue eyes were full of disgust and hate, and they were as hard as rocks. "Come over here and say it to my face, you whiny shit for brains pussy." He spat out.

Charlie narrowed his blue eyes. His jaw clenched and it flexed a bit. "That's it, Chambers. Your ass is gonna be grass real fast!" He took a threatening step forward, grumbling under his breath. I remembered when he threatened us with that same exact wording when we had our standoff at the site of where Ray Brower's body was, in his final resting place.

Ace sighed loudly, looking vaguely annoyed at what we all knew was another one of Billy's empty-handed threats. "Shut it, Hogan." Said boy fell silent instantly, running his hand through his hair. Then Ace patted my cheek. Well, more like slapped my cheek. I winced a bit, rubbing my cheek. What an asshole.

Suddenly, Ace's hand whipped out and grabbed Chris by the shoulder. Before anybody could react, he shoved Chris down on the forest floor next to me. "Charlie, move the hell back in your spot, _now_." He spat out venomously without turning back to glare at Charlie. Charlie winced and took a small step back, going back next to Billy. "Get these faggots upright, Jack. If Gordie or Chris so much as twitch their noses or squeal like little pigs, bash the other's fucking face into a tree."

I felt anger spike up into my veins at that threat. There was no way I'd make any noise now, not if it meant the repercussions were aimed to physically hurt Chris. I knew that Chris wouldn't make any noise either, in order to protect me. I also knew for a fact that Ace wasn't screwing around. He wasn't bluffing, he was dead freaking serious. Same with Jack. I think that me and Chris both knew that Jackson "Jack" Mudgett wasn't about to back down from a direct order from John "Ace" fucking Merrill. He'd do it in a heartbeat. Hell, I'm pretty sure he'd kill somebody if Ace asked without so much as batting an eyelash. _For those of you who've been living under a rock for… well… your entire lives… the phrase "without batting an eyelash" means to show no emotion and acting as nothing were unusual." So, yeah. Jack wouldn't fuck around when it came to the great and powerful - notice the sarcasm there - leader of the Cobras orders. I'm sure nobody in that damn gang would have_.)

Jack said a "you got it, Ace" before he ran his hand through his dark brown hair. I glared darkly at Jack, my hands curled up into fists. My nails bit harshly into the sweaty palms of my hand. The hot ground under my body only served as more gasoline to the already raging fire swirling inside of my bones. I wanted to rip their heads off and kick their bodies off the nearest cliff. But I didn't. I wouldn't move a muscle or make any protesting sounds, no matter what Jack did to me while hauling me up, but whether or not he did anything was completely up to him. I _couldn't_ move or make a noise. There was no way in Hell I would let Chris get hurt by my rebellious actions.

Jack nodded and stepped forward. Ace moved out of the way so Jack could get me up from the disgustingly hot forest ground, and Ace's blue eyes were emotionless as ever. Jack turned off his flashlight, his light blue eyes shining in the near darkness of the forest as grabbed my arm and hauled me up. His silhouette was lit up by the remaining flashlights of the other Cobras. It looked like there was an unearthly glow surrounding him. ( _I would have said it was an angelic glow, but let's be honest for a second here - Jack Mudgett was anything but an angel_.)

I clenched my jaw to stop from myself making any noise. I determined whether or not Jack would hurt me if I so much as blinked, but decided not to take that risk. I didn't twitch my nose or blink. I stared right at Jack, and Jack stared right back at me for a few solid seconds, determining whether or not I'd squeal like a damned farm animal. I didn't.

"Smart kid." Jack sneered. I didn't say or do anything. He let go of my arm, his jaw clenched. Now I could faintly make out the teen's prominent cheekbones in his silhouette. I just glared darkly at him. Hey, Ace didn't say that we couldn't glare at Jack. We wouldn't get hurt because of us glaring at Jack and the rest of Ace's damned slimy gang. I caught Ace faintly smirking behind him, his flashlight turned back on. The circular ring of white light shone on the roots of the tree he was leaning on, and the dirt as well. Then Jack moved over to Chris and hauled him upright. Chris stayed absolutely still and silent as Jack did this. He didn't protest or even twitch his finger. See, I knew he'd stay completely silent in order to protect me, as I did for him.

"Aw, isn't that sweet?" Ace crooned, grinning like the disgusting snake he always had been and still was. "You promise someone with the threat that you're going to hurt their best friend and they automatically become your bitch." He said, and the shit eating grin on his lips fell as he said in a flat, emotionless voice: "It makes me sick to my stomach."

Chris and I exchanged glances and we both simultaneously glared darkly at Ace with as much hate as we could muster up ( _which, for the record, was a shit ton of hatred_ ). I'm sure that Chris was thinking along the same lines as I was: " _If you hurt my best friend I will kill you without hesitation_ ". Oh… Yeah. Even without the threat of something bad happening, me and Chris were fiercely protective of each other and caring of each other. Hell, I could say I'd have a shit day and Chris would be right there as I complained about said "shit day" as someone to vent to. But in other more extreme cases, I felt like we had to put on a brave face in front of whatever physical danger we were facing at the moment. Whether it be facing down bullies at school ( _mostly that was my case, sometimes Chris's_ ), taking any kind of beating from his father ( _Chris would be the one facing down the physical contact beatings and the emotionally and mentally degrading "beatings" - I say beatings, but they were more like fucking_ torture _sessions - from the drunken Mr. Chambers, while I on the other hand was forced to deal with my own father's mental and emotional degrading's by myself most of the time, which were usually completely ignored attempts at small conversations on my part or weak, feeble conversations, or ignoring me completely on my father's end of whatever attempt at a conversation I half-assedly tried to make. Mostly it was ignoring me completely rather than the other two_.), or facing down Ace and his goddamned no good Cobras that day of the showdown on-site of Ray Brower's dead body, or whatever other shit our lives had decided to unceremoniously thrown our way.

So, yeah. Fun times.

"The threat still stands, you annoying little pussies." Ace continued in a dangerously low voice. I tried my hardest not to glare at him for calling me and Chris pussies. "If either one of you so much as open your mouths to squeak like a damn mouse we'll gladly kick the shit out of the other one, and then I'll have Fuzzy right here-" he pointed to the brute of a human being nicknamed Fuzzy, who cracked his knuckles in a real threatening way, which made me swallow the spit that had gathered up in my throat, "-throw said other one into a tree then throw him out into the main road, where you'll hopefully pass out get run over by a car come the early morning hours." Ace growled darkly. The look that he gave us was so wilting and venomous it would have killed my mother's backyard garden. And a farmer's entire crop. And a flower bed. And a puppy.

I really had no desire to end up as fifteen year old goddamned roadkill. Neither did Chris. We didn't want to be responsible for the other getting injured or worse, killed at the greasy hands of the Cobras. So we did what we had to do: we stayed completely and utterly silent. It was like we weren't even with the Cobras.

Fuzzy walked forward until he was face to face with us. "Hello, girls." He said the word girls in a too-bright voice. I wanted to kick him in the balls. "Lovely night for a stroll, yeah, ladies?" He grinned at us, his teeth glinting in the moonlight and in the bright white lights of the flashlights. The flashlights and the moonlight accented his pearly whites a bit.

Chris and I didn't say anything. I clanked my teeth together to prevent from making a smart-assed comment that'd get Chris hurt, or worse. Heaven forbid I make a smart-assed comment _now_ of all times.

I internally shuddered at the thought of Chris getting beaten to a pulp in front of my eyes. Not a thought I want to see come to life.

Fuzzy pulled something out of his back jean pocket, his eyes trained on our faces. Two strips of cloth crudely ripped from a red bandana and a green bandana dangled from his hand. Vince bent down on the ground suddenly and pulled out rope from his backpack. He grinned at us.

"Hope you boys aren't afraid of being tied up." He said in a low voice, a smirk teasing the edge of his lips.

I swallowed hard as he advanced towards me. Great. It was like we were like prisoners, and the Cobras were the policemen.

Billy, Vince and Charlie all stepped forward. I narrowed my eyes in alarm before I quickly braced myself, expecting the worst, but they only turned us around and took our camping equipment. They slid them over their own backs. Charlie made a noise that sounded like a cross between a groan and a huff as he tilted backwards under the weight of everything I had carried with me. Good. That asshole deserved it. Unfortunately, he didn't fall backwards and his knees didn't buck under the weight he was carrying, as a part of me secretly hoped he would. Oh well. Beggars can't be choosers.

The three of them went back to their spots, glancing at Ace for their next order. There was none.

Instead, Ace just smirked. "So, the little faggots went camping together." Is the only thing he said.

"Aw, isn't that sweet?" Eyeball said in a mock happy voice. I could hear the sarcasm clearly dripping from his voice. I wanted to punch both the leader and cofounder of the Cobras's, AKA Ace the leader and Eyeball the cofounder. Ace and Eyeball were best friends and they actually _still are_ best friends - hell those two were close as me and Chris. Maybe they were even closer than the two of us, because after all they were older than us. Except I always figured that Ace and Eyeball friendship and mine and Chris's friendship were complete polar opposites of each other. But I was wrong. ( _Even to this day I still come to Castle Rock._ _I come here to visit a few of his old college friends who moved there from college, and a couple miscellaneous high school friends_ _And Ace Merrill and Eyeball Chambers. Funnily enough, Richard "Eyeball" Chambers, John "Ace" Merrill and I became close friends well after college. More accurately, we became close friends when I was twenty-eight years old, and when Eyeball was thirty-three years old, and when Ace was thirty-six years old. We catch up a lot about things._ ) "And not to mention - it's very romantic." He grinned like the little shit I knew he was.

Chris glared at him and flipped him off. Then I saw the fear spike up in his widening blue eyes. He put his hand down at his side, his entire body tensing up. I knew what he was thinking. He was thinking that I'd get hurt because of his action. I quickly braced myself for the impending pain.

However, Ace and the rest of the Cobras just chuckled. I didn't get beat up by them or thrown into a tree and tossed out in the road to be roadkill. While that may have been true, I didn't relax. My shoulders were still tense. Chris didn't relax either.

"Fuzzy, Jack, go ahead and tie them up." Ace commanded.

Fuzzy and Jack both nodded their heads, smirking as each boy wrapped the bandanas around our eyes and tied our hands together behind our backs. I had the green bandana covering my eyes, and obviously Chris had the red bandana covering his eyes. First I was blindfolded, then my hands were tied securely behind my back. I heard Chris take a deep breath as the rope was securely knotted and tightened around his wrists. We didn't struggle, despite something inside of me urging me on, telling me that I had to. I ignored that little part of me. There would be no use trying to fight against them.

"Let's move our asses." Ace growled.

"Right." The Cobras chorused.

I don't know who grabbed my arm, but they yanked me forward. I stumbled along, worried. The Cobras's footsteps seemed much louder than they were, maybe because of my hyper awareness.

We stumbled on into the night.

 **XXX**

I wasn't sure where the hell we were going, but I knew that we weren't going to the end of a cute happy rainbow. God damn it all. Anyway, we've been walking around in the dark for a little over two hours now. ( _And yes, I counted every single second of the Cobras' kidnapping us up until the time we escaped from their greasy clutches. Hey, I had nothing better to do_.) I guessed that the blindfolds were so that we couldn't figure out where we were going and pinpoint a certain… um, tree… and figure out an escape route from there. Not like I'd remember which tree I pinpointed, seeing as we're in the freaking _forest_. My other guess was that the ropes were so that me and Chris didn't get any funny ideas while one - fighting back/escaping on our trek through the forest to the camp - or two - fighting back/escaping freely once we got to said camp.

"Not far now, boys." I heard Eyeball say off to my left, with excitement creeping into his voice. I swallowed hard, nerves fluttering up in my stomach, making it twist in an uncomfortable way. Didn't these assholes have anything better to do than pick on some fifteen year old kids who were peacefully camping in the woods? Didn't they have the sides of brick buildings to vandalize? Didn't they have to go around town stealing money from little kids for some chewing tobacco or twenty-five cent bubblegum, or smoking and drinking in a farmer's goddamned crop field (or destroying it depending on your view of them; I could imagine them smoking and/or drinking in a farmer's crop field and *then* destroying it - you know that saying, killing two birds with one stone), or drinking a bottle of the "hard stuff" that they stole from the grocery store, or tearing through neighborhoods and honking their horns and/or revving their engines at three in the fucking morning? They must have had something better to do than terrorize two fifteen year old kids. Surely.

Beside me, I heard someone's foot catch on something. I heard Billy - that was who caught their foot on something - mutter words that shouldn't be used in front of your grandparents under his breath. Having nothing else better to, I decided to listen in on Charlie, Vince and Jack's conversation. Not like I could just change the channel or something. This wasn't a damn TV show.

"So Charlie, how's Wallis?" Jack questioned.

"She's good." Charlie replied. I couldn't see it, but I could tell there was a smile on his lips from the tone of his voice.

I frowned. Who the hell's Wallis? I had never heard of that chick's name in my life before.

"You get to third base yet?" He asked.

"No." Oh. That's Charlie's girlfriend. Duh. "What about you and Amber, and what about you, Jack? You get anywhere with Lynn yet?" He asked.

Vince shook his head. "Not yet. But me and Amber are talking about it."

Jack shook his head. "Me and Lynn have gotten to second base. That's it."

Oh. Amber was Vince's girlfriend and Lynn was Jack's girlfriend.

"Oh." Charlie replied. They went on talking about something else, and I half-listened as we kept walking.

After a few minutes, I heard a large fire crackling and popping in the distance. That must be their camp. Well, obviously.

Anyway, stumbling around in the dark woods like a newborn goddamned calf with my hands tied behind my back and blindfolded was not my idea of enjoyment by any stretch of the word. I really, really wanted to go home.

I swallowed hard as someone forced me to sit down. Someone shoved me backwards, and my back and the back of my head smashed into a tree. I winced as my head throbbed with every beat of my heart. My pounding heart leaped up into my throat and a spike of adrenaline shot through me as I heard things crashing to the ground.

Someone untied my blindfold and it slipped onto my lap. I was face to face with Jack. He grinned at me. The warm glow of the huge bonfire off to our rights casted a dark orange, devilish looking glow on his face. "You're an obedient little thing, aren't you?" He asked in a condescending tone.

I didn't reply.

"Who knew that you could bend a homo to your will if threaten their boyfriend?" He asked, smirking.

I stared right into his eyes, puffed out my chest, and said: "Chris is not my boyfriend."

Jack rose an eyebrow.

"Go fuck a goat, asshat." I growled.

Jack rolled his light blue eyes. "No thanks."

Off to my right, Eyeball basically threw Chris into a tree. I winced with Chris as the back of his head head and his back slammed into the rough bark. He slid down to the ground, keeping completely silent. He drew his knees up to his chest immediately. He was a trooper, I'll give him that. He had a high pain tolerance, but I suspected that the reason he had a high pain tolerance was because of his crappy home life. His father and Eyeball would beat him over the smallest things. Hell, Eyeball would beat him up just because he was bored and needed something to do.

Jack patted my cheek before walking away, towards the bonfire. Ace was standing near the bonfire, smoking a cigarette. The flames of the fire made me feel warm even from where I was sitting. I didn't want to feel the fire's warmth, since I was sweating from running through the forest in this damn heat. Billy, Vince, Charlie, and Fuzzy were sitting on a big enough log/fallen tree with the leaves and the branches cut off on the opposite side of the bonfire, talking with each other about things. Three tents were set up around the bonfire. For the eight guys that were in the Cobras, that seemed like a pretty reasonable amount of tents. Ace and Jack started talking to each other, glancing over at the other Cobras occasionally to input their own opinions on whatever it was they were talking about. I ignored their conversation and instead focused in on Chris and Eyeball's conversation.

"Hello Christopher." Eyeball said with an easy, casual grin on his lips. He looked like a pit-bull.

"Hello, _Richard_." My best friend spat. "How's your mental stability? Is it in the shitter? Yeah, I think it is, you snot-rag."

"Ooh, someone's angry. That's not a good thing, Chrissy." He said in a patronizing tone.

Chris glared at him darkly. He looked miffed. "Let Gordie go." Is the only thing he said. "He has nothing to do with this."

"Aw. But where would the fun in that be, Christopher?" Eyeball asked in a low voice, pouting slightly. If Chris's hands weren't tied behind his back, I'm sure that he would have clobbered him no problem.

"You let him go, damn you, you annoying little fuck-wad!" He yelled suddenly. "Let Gordie go, you shitbag!" He yelled again, louder this time. "The Cobras' issue is with me, it's not with him!" His voice was rough with desperation.

My heart lurched in my chest again. I silently begged Eyeball to have a sudden change of heart.

But instead, Eyeball just sighed in annoyance, like Chris was something gross and icky at the bottom of his shoe, like it would be a nuisance to get off. "That's where you're wrong, little brother. He has everything to do with this." He pointed at me, a smirk ghosting across his lips.

Damn it. Although it was stupid of me to wish that Eyeball Chambers would have a sudden change of heart. Did he even have a heart? Probably not. If he did, it was probably so small that I'd need a magnifying glass to see it, and so icy cold that we'd need the heat of the freaking sun to melt it.

"I was the one who wouldn't move away from you guys that day of our little showdown over claiming Ray's dead body, man. He wasn't! Gordie was just trying to protect me!" Chris argued.

"The little shit still threatened to shoot me." Ace snapped suddenly, finally budging in on the conversation. He lasted longer than I thought he would, if I'm being completely honest.

I winced, my stomach twisting up in uncomfortable knots. "Only because you tried to kill Chris." I defended myself.

"I don't give a fuck, you cock-knocker." Ace said in a dangerously low voice. "Attempted murder is still attempted murder."

"Self defense is still self defense." Chris argued back.

"Or in this case: saving your best friend's life from a deranged psychopath." I snapped, a bitch-face resting on my… well, face.

Ace turned his attention to me fully. "Shut your fucking mouth, kid."

Okay, just because Ace was/still is five years older than me didn't mean that he could call me "kid" so freely. Speaking of ages, Eyeball was four years older than me and Chris at the time of me and Chris's kidnapping, so he was nineteen. Vince was nineteen as well, and so was Jack, so they were three years older than us. Billy and Charlie were seventeen years old, so they were two years older than us.

"Come over here and make me." I snapped, a burst of adrenaline coursing through me.

"Gordie." Chris said quietly. I knew he was trying to get me to back down, but I had had enough of these assholes.

"No, Chris. I'm done being scared of these fuckers." I said, glaring darkly at them. "You guys can fuck right off."

Ace rose his eyebrow. "I was right. You were wrong Eyeball. The kid *did* grow some balls, boys."

The Cobras all looked amused.

"Yeah. He did. And we're so proud of the little LaChance kid." Eyeball said, smirking.

I bit my tongue to stop from screaming profanities at him. I kept silent.

"You have been a pain in my side since day one." Ace commented, glaring at me. He ran his hand through his hair before walking over to me. He crouched down in front of me so we were looking at each other eye to eye. "And I don't appreciate that."

I glared at right back at him. "I don't give a shit what you do and don't appreciate."

Ace clicked his tongue. "Fine. …You know what?"

I clenched my jaw, not saying anything.

"I wasn't gonna hurt you at first." Ace said as if I asked him what was going on in his fucked up head. "Now that you've pissed me off, I've changed my mind. Now I'm gonna fucking hurt you."

I sneered. "Do your worst, shit-heap."

"You got it." Ace said casually.

"NO!" Chris screamed. I had almost forgotten he was there. Where I was. I turned my head towards him. His ocean blue eyes were full of panic. "Don't you touch Gordie, you psychotic wet-end!" He yelled at Ace as he uselessly struggled against his bonds.

I kept my eyes locked onto Ace's face. Ace ignored Chris and focused his attention solely on me. "So, first thing's first…" he trailed off, smirking widely. "Eyeball, make sure those bonds on Chris's hands are real tight."

Eyeball nodded and spun Chris around, making sure that the ropes were tight enough. He quadruple knotted the bonds tight enough so that Chris could barely even move his hands. He punched hard Chris on the back - which made Chris wince - before turning him around. "Done, Ace."

"Great." Ace still had that annoying stupid smirk on his stupid face. I really wanted to punch it off of his stupid damned lips. "Now…" he grabbed me by my arm and yanked me up roughly, his fingernails digging into the way too sensitive skin of my pale, skinny arm. Ace started dragging me towards the fire, his blue eyes showing no emotion. I struggled helplessly in his iron-tight grip. The steely, passive faces of the rest of the Cobras stared at us with no signs of attempting to try and stop this madman named Ace as he literally dragged a stumbling and trying-to-resist-but-failing-epically me towards the big fire. Orange, yellow and red flames cut through the nighttime air like the nighttime air was really thin paper, illuminating the whole campground with yellow, red and orange colors. Thanks to the gigantic fire and its radius, I could see everything in the campground. I saw our camping equipment laying out in the open, the other Cobras (besides Ace and Eyeball) standing around, watching us. The tents that were set up. The dark blue cooler on the make-shift bench that was near the tent, filled with what I assumed was beer, water, and juice boxes, and snacks that needed to be kept on the cooler side. If I could my head without getting beat up for it by Ace him-fucking-self, I could see Eyeball and Chris.

Speaking of Chris, he was absolutely screaming his head off. He was screaming at Ace that he'd kill him and that he'd "better not touch another damn hair on his head, you shit-heap!" ( _I'm pretty sure that his voice/throat was horse or raw, and/or about to start bleeding as he thrashed and kicked in the background, trying to get to me and probably beat the crap out of Ace too_.) He was as desperate as a trapped wild animal trying to break free from its small cage. Or in Chris's case, the quadruple knotted ropes that were probably tight enough to hold back a freaking coyote - or something like that - which were mercilessly tied by his older brother. Eyeball pinned the struggling Chris to the tree to hold him down, and I heard Chris let out a very loud breath of obvious protest and no doubt pain, due to the rough bark that I knew was there.

Ace (none too nicely) pushed me down in front of the fire, his face cold and wiped clean of emotion, a stark contrast between the facial expression he had plastered on and the roaring hot bonfire directly in front of us. The sparks of the fire rose up in the sky as the fire popped and sizzled. I glared at him again as he glanced back over at Chris, who was still being held down by Eyeball and screaming at the top of his lungs. The heat of the fire made my face hurt like a bitch. Oh well. Not like I could wipe the sweat off my face, what with my hands tied behind my back.

"Now, are you ready to have some fun?" Ace asked in a too-bright tone.

I felt my stomach twist up in tightly bunched up knots, but I kept my face clean of emotion. If my mother was here with her clean-of-any-emotion face plastered on, we could have contests regarding who was currently "wearing" the best "clean-of-any-emotion" face.

I didn't respond to him. I kept my eyes trained on his face, and I vaguely wondered if Ace felt any other "emotions" besides being an asshole and sadistic.

"Good." Ace said as if I'd spoken up. "Let's get started."

"NO, NO! DON'T YOU TOUCH MY BEST FRIEND, ACE MERRILL! _NO_!" Chris screamed again, his voice echoing around the campground. " _GORDIE_!"

"CHRIS!" I screamed back, terrified for my life.

My desperate scream spurred on another round of struggling and yelling from Chris. I wanted to cry at the pain and anger and heartbreak I saw in his expression.

"GORDIE! GORDIE!" He screamed, his voice rough. "NO, PLEASE DON'T, ACE! PLEASE! _GORDIE_!" He screamed at the top of his lungs.

I was about to respond to Chris's desperate screams again, but I saw that Ace had had enough of my/his/our shit. He stood me up, shoved me backwards with the strength of a fucking ox, and as I stumbled around to regain my footing, he punched me in the face. Stunned, I gasped in pain and fell back to the hot ground, *hard*. I was dazed. My cheek hurt. Damn it all. I saw dark spots filter across my vision from the force of the punch.

"Get him, boys!" Ace howled out in this feral tone, and the rest of the Cobras - minus Eyeball (who was still holding Chris down), and Billy and Charlie (Billy and Charlie were out collecting more wood for the bonfire) - slithered over to me. I scrambled up and tried to sprint away while ignoring the dizziness and the pain I felt, but Jack grabbed my wrist and threw me down to the ground. I only managed to get a couple more feet away from the bonfire and towards Chris, but it was enough so I - or anyone else for that matter - wouldn't get burned by it. The only way someone would get burned by the fire was if they took about seven or eight giant steps back, *then* they'd be in real trouble. Anyway, it's safe to say that the wind was knocked out of my body when Jack threw me to the ground.

Before I could react, the Cobras had surrounded me in mere seconds. They swarmed around me like a pack of hungry vultures (or wolves), and they started kicking me everywhere, jeering as they did so. I could do nothing but whimper and cry out in pain while curling up over my stomach, trying ( _and epically failing_ ) to protect myself from the harsh blows to my body. Someone kicked me hard in the head, and I screamed in pain.

While they were beating me, I honestly didn't know if I'd make it out alive.

Chris screamed with me as he saw me getting beat up in front of his own two eyes, howling about how he'd kill Ace the second he got his hands on him. I gasped in pain again, downright begging for Ace to call the Cobras off, for them to stop badly hurting me. But they didn't stop. They _didn't stop_. They abused me, taunted me about things that were way, _way_ too personal for me, like the fact that my parents ignored and disliked me, and they taunted me about Denny's death. Vince said that getting died because he wanted to get away from me. Tears of white-hot agonizing pain mixed with sadness and anger at Vince's comment quickly made their way down my pale cheeks. Chris was still howling in the background, and I heard Ace laughing darkly and Eyeball taunting Chris.

"Look at you, Christopher." Eyeball said in a voice that would be the perfect example of a mother speaking to her baby, although I somehow heard the mock sadness weaving its way into his voice through the ringing in my ears. "You're so fucking powerless. Too bad you can't stop them from beating up your boyfriend." He sneered.

 _He's not my goddamned boyfriend!_ I thought, annoyed.

"Stop…" I could still hear Chris sobbing/screaming in the background, but it was like I was underwater. I couldn't really hear anything else over my own grunts/groans, sobs, and yelps of pain and the sound and the feeling of the varying shoe prints sizes of the Cobras, and the pain that shot though me at their kicks finding their markers on my body, beating me up and bruising me. "Please, please stop!" Chris yelled.

I thought that I would die. I somewhat hoped that I would. Dying right now in that moment would have been better than suffering through more taunts, the physical blows to my body, and the loud, heartbroken and desperate screams of my best friend, Christopher Alexander Chambers.

"This is what you get when you mess with the Cobras, Gordon." Ace growled to me, but ignored Chris's pleas. I couldn't snap back a reply or anything. Couldn't open my damn mouth. I didn't even wince or glare at Ace when he called me by my full name. Hell I could barely _breathe_. I guessed that I had a cracked and/or a broken rib or two. My face was bloody and bruised. My gonads hurt. Actually, screw that, everything hurt. Fucking God damn it.

After what felt like seven million hours, Ace flicked his hand and told them to stop, and the Cobras receded, backing away from us. Sometime during the hell-punishment, Charlie and Billy came back. I could just barely make out their voices through the loud buzzing that swarmed around in my head. I couldn't hear or see Chris. Dark spots danced across my vision. I didn't even have the energy to twitch, much less physically move my body and head to look for my best friend and hear his voice. I probably had a concussion and a few cracked - or broken - ribs. Along with many scrapes and bruises and possibly a few broken fingers and maybe even a broken toe or two. Along with some other horrible/nasty injuries, it was hard to breathe. I managed to groan softly in pain after a long while of laying there on the disgustingly hot forest floor, my dark brown eyes closing. I tried to reopen them, but I didn't have the strength to. The dark spots grew larger and more frequent.

I passed out cold a minute later, with the sounds of Chris's screams being the last thing I heard.

 **XXX**

 **Chris's POV**

"Gordie…" I murmured, horrified as Gordie's body stilled. My eyes were wide with fear and anger. Fear for my best friend's wellbeing, and anger at the Cobras, at Eyeball for happily going along with tying me - his _younger brother_ \- up good and preventing me from moving. I was angry because being tied down meant that I couldn't physically fight back and help Gordie. I was angry at Ace for making the call to beat Gordie up. I was also angry at the other Cobras for beating Gordie up without so much as batting an eyelash. Fucking assholes.

Was Gordie dead? Fucking Christ, I hoped not. I prayed to every God out there with every fiber of my being that Gordie wasn't dead, and I'm an atheist. I haven't ever believed in any God. If I did, why hadn't He answered me about the important questions I have? Why didn't He prevent Gordie's brother Denny's death? Why the heck did He let my father and Eyeball physically, mentally and emotionally abuse me for years and years on end? Why did He allow my mother to hate her life and for her to blatantly ignore her family? Why did He allow my father to drink himself into a stupor, or until he actually passes out? Why couldn't He allow for me and Gordie be a couple of happy teenagers, ones without any horrible life-in-the-past baggage? Why couldn't He allow me and Gordie normal lives? Why? Actually, I wasn't the one who deserved a happy, normal life. I deserved my shitty excuse of a life. Gordie was the one who deserved all the happiness in the world, not me. Why would God let Denny die like that? It didn't make any sense to me. None at all.

Ace started laughing. It was cold, and it made the small hairs on the back of my neck stand up. I struggled harder against Eyeball's grip, still screaming bloody murder. "I'm gonna fucking bash your face in with a rock, you mommy fucker psychopath! I'M GONNA FUCKING SLIT YOUR THROAT AND SEND YOUR BLOODY BODY IN A PACKAGE TO YOUR WHORE MOTHER!" I screamed, my face bright red from anger.

Ace ignored my threats, and Eyeball smacked my cheek. I didn't even wince. I was used to this kind of abuse. I was jaded to it. It didn't really affect me. Ever since I was five years old, I've been physically beaten up by Eyeball and my father. But Gordie… Gordie wasn't used to this monstrous physical abuse. Damn it, I should have offered to take Gordie's fucking place. Damn it!

"Calm the hell down, Christopher." Eyeball growled out, narrowing his eyes. "Unless you want us to actually kill Gordie."

I stopped struggling, and shut my trap instantly. There was no way in Hell I'd want to be responsible for my best friend's death.

"Eyeball, that's enough with the threats, let him go. Untie him, too." Ace commanded through his cold laughter.

That caught Eyeball off guard. "What?" He asked, as if he hadn't heard him right. "You sure you want me to untie him?" He asked, averting his attention from me to look over at Ace fully now. "He's still pretty violent. You heard his threats that he shouted out literally seconds ago, right?"

Ace nodded. "I did." He said casually.

"And you're still sure you wanna let him go, Ace?"

He nodded again. "I'm sure. Christopher won't go anywhere without Gordie."

God damn it, he was completely right. I wouldn't leave Gordie behind in the dust, not now, and especially not in his current passed-out and badly injured state. He knew my weak spot, which was Gordie LaChance.

Fucking hell.

Eyeball nodded after a moment of contemplating and let me go obediently. He got off me (I could breath properly again, thank God for that) and slowly untied my hands from the quadruple knotted ropes. After a minute of tense silence, the ropes fell away from my wrists and onto the forest ground, leaving my wrists burning, aching, raw and an angry red color. I rubbed both my wrists gingerly with my hands, ignoring the bolts of pain that shot through my veins like white-hot electricity. Eyeball fixed his hair, stepped away from me, and gave me a wide berth, and I dashed towards Gordie, nearly tripping over my own two feet as I sprinted towards his broken, still body.

"Gordie! Gordie!" I cried, not touching him for fear of making his injuries worse than they already were. He looked really, really bad. It scared me to death. I glared up at Ace, who was still grinning like he _hadn't_ just ordered his goons to badly beat up an innocent, skinny, defenseless fifteen year old kid. I knew that Gordie had gotten beat up pretty badly by Preston Carlyle a few weeks ago (and I had cleaned up his injuries the best I could with the limited resources I had available to me, but our high school's nurse, Mrs. Fairchild, had done a much better job at patching up Gordie than I did; mainly because I was a fifteen year old kid and Mrs. Fairchild was a nurse), but this was nowhere as bad as what the Cobras did to Gordie. He looked so small and broken. Actually, I'm pretty sure multiple things in his body were broken.

"Gordie, come on man, wake up…" I whispered, scared to death. He didn't move, didn't twitch. "What did you do?!" I screamed at the Cobras. They ignored me, except for Ace, who was smirking as he nudged Gordie with the tip of his boot. Still, Gordie didn't make any sound. My heart jumped up into my throat. Frantically, I put two fingers to the pulse point on his neck. It was there, thank God, beating and thumping with every scratchy rise and fall of his chest. Gordie was still alive. I let out a long, deep breath I didn't realize I was holding. He was alive, but I still needed to somehow get him to a hospital, and fast. I'd drag our asses there with the speed of a goddamned cheetah if I could carry him without hurting him anymore than he already was.

"I need to get him to a hospital." I murmured out loud, only to be ignored by the Cobras. "Hey, you wet ends!" I yelled loudly, annoyance spiking rapidly through my veins with as much speed and intensity as a lightning bolt. "Didn't you shitheaps hear me? We need to get Gordie to the fucking hospital! NOW!" I screamed the word now, and my voice echoed completely around the campground. I could hear it.

I was once again (infuriatingly) ignored again by the Cobras, but I got two reactions, and that was Charlie and Billy. They didn't really do anything, they just glanced over at me quickly. I noticed that they looked vaguely guilty and upset, even though they didn't participate in beating Gordie Patrick LaChance up. They were out collecting more firewood. Maybe… maybe I could convince them to bring Gordie somewhere safe, somewhere where he could not live in fear of Ace's next brutal attack. I had to make sure that Gordie was safe. In the end, I didn't give a shit about what happened to me, I just knew that I _had_ to protect Gordie, no matter what. He's my best friend in the entire fucking universe. Now, we may only be a few months apart in age, but I feel like an older brother to him. I'm sure he feels the same way; that I'm like an older brother to him. Like a second Denny, but only older by a couple of months, rather than a couple of years. Denny and Gordie were five years apart in age. Gordie and me have an age difference of seven months, to be exact. I have blonde hair and blue eyes, not brown hair and brown eyes like Denny. I was also a little taller than Gordie's own height, not six-slash-seven-foot-whatever, whatever Denny's height was. I didn't tower over Gordie like Denny had, although I was about a head taller than Gordie. Me and Denny didn't have the same pasts (yeah, our pasts were not even remotely close to being the same), but I'm sure that Gordie could see just a few small similarities of Denny in me. Despite all of this, I knew for a fact that I could never replace the actual Dennis LaChance. I could never. You get what I'm trying to say here? Denny and me were nothing alike, but I still think that Gordie, saw me as a brotherly figure.

"Ace, maybe the kid's right…" Charlie trailed off, snagging his lower lip between his teeth. His voice snapped me back to reality.

"No. We're not moving from this camp sight." Ace snapped irritably.

"Ace, come on." Billy tried to persuade him, but Ace was so determined in sticking to his damned guns.

"I said _no_ , and that's final."

"Do you want to go to jail for hurting a minor, when you're over eighteen years old?" I demanded. "You're twenty three years old, aren't you?" I didn't wait for an answer. "And you commanded your asshat gang members to beat up a fifteen year old kid, whose a minor." I said, my eyes narrowed at them. I kept my voice calm and steady. "And all of your asshole gang members are either eighteen or they're over eighteen, so they'll be jailed for abusing Gordie, whose a minor. You could all be in jail for one to ten years or more because what you did to him was so severe. Not to mention the fact that you'll all be on probation, and you'll all get a fine for up to ten thousand dollars or more." Before anyone could speak, I continued in a calm, rational voice, "and Billy, Charlie, and Eyeball will go to jail for a year and have to pay a fine up to one thousand dollars for standing by and doing nothing to help Gordie, and/or being witnesses or accomplices to the crime."

They all looked at me, utterly shocked. Vince looked pale. They all did. I knew all of that information because of one of my high school/college credit courses is studying law. So it's not bullshit.

Ace looked extremely uncomfortable and a little more pale than the rest of the Cobras, except for Billy and Charlie, who were somewhat innocent. We all knew for a fact that he couldn't pay a ten thousand dollar fine, and I knew that he didn't want to rot in some jail cell in some high maximum security prison in God knows where for one-through-ten years of his pathetic, crime filled life.

"Charlie, Fuzzy, Billy?" Is the only thing Ace said, after a couple minutes of pure silence.

"Yeah, Ace?" They asked at the same time, Fuzzy looking a little white.

"Get Gordon and Christopher to the hospital. That's an order." I glared at Ace for using my full name. I'm sure if Gordie was conscious, he'd glare at Ace too. And if I'm being honest, I hadn't thought that that me telling them the threat of them going to jail, being on probation, and paying a large fine for endangerment of two minors and and abuse of a minor would actually work. I resisted the urge to smile in triumph as Fuzzy, Billy and Charlie grabbed our things and hauled our camping equipment onto their backs. Fuzzy didn't look bothered by carrying the weight of all our things ( _seeing as he's so big and tall and muscular and shit_ ), but I saw that Billy and Charlie groaned and struggled under the weight of our things once again. Good. There's a small victory right there.

Turning my attention to Gordie, I licked my lips and prayed that he wouldn't feel anything when I moved him and carried him to the hospital. I took a deep breath and picked him up very carefully and slowly in a bridal hold.

Vince, Charlie and Billy didn't wait for me. They, with their flashlights on, moved quickly through the woods. I followed them, praying that Gordie wouldn't wake up and feel any pain on the way to the hospital.

 **XXX**

 **Gordie's POV**

When I woke up, the first thing that I was aware of was a loud incessant beeping noise off to my right. The second thing that I was aware of was the depressingly bright white room I was in. The white blinds were drawn, so I couldn't see outside, and I had no idea what time it was or what day it was, either. The third thing that I was aware of was the agonizingly unbearable pain I was in, and the numbness plus the stiffness that had seemed to have cemented itself in the core of my very being. The forth thing that I was aware of was the fact that I had no idea where the hell I was, even though I guessed that I was in some stupid hospital room, but I wasn't completely sure of that. But I had a pretty good guess that I was right about this being a hospital room. The fifth thing that I was aware of was that there was an IV needle in my right arm, steadily pumping no doubt much-needed fluids into my body. Good. The sixth thing that I noticed was that Chris was sitting in one of those uncomfortable plastic chairs. From what I could tell, the chair was an dark, ugly red color. The seventh thing that I was aware of was that Christopher Alexander Chambers was firmly holding my cold, pale right hand in own his warm, tan left hand. It made my stomach twist in an uncomfortably good, warm way. Chris's hair was like a limp golden blonde curtain in front of his face. It didn't look combed or washed, either. His head was tilted down so his chin rested in that tiny space between his left collarbone and the hollow of his throat. The position and angle his had his head in looked a hell of a lot more than slightly uncomfortable. I wondered why he hadn't bothered to sleep on the padded cream-colored bench that was directly across from where I was laying. And I wondered why he was sleeping in some uncomfortable chair rather than on that bench, with a blanket and possibly a pillow. But whatever. I wasn't going to judge him. Even through his greasy, matted, uncombed blonde hair, I could bet that Chris's ocean blue eyes were closed tightly. I glanced down at our entwined hands and noticed that his wrists were slightly red, probably from the ropes Eyeball had quadruple knotted around his wrists… however many hours/days ago that was. Despite his gross hair and rope-burned, red colored, angry wrists he still looked somewhat okay. Well, he definitely looked a lot better than _my own_ physical appearance, that's for sure.

I felt like crap. I had thick white bandages wrapped around my torso. I knew that I had at least either fractured or broken a rib or two. Ouch. I had a large bruise on the back of my head (plus a really nasty headache), my third toe on my left foot and my big toe on my right foot were definitely broken, as were my ring finger plus my pointer finger on my left hand, and my pinky ringer on my right hand. I could feel the thick white protective bandages wrapped around my toes, see the bandages on my three fingers. I could feel the pain as clear as looking through glass, and safe to say that pain sucked ass. I didn't have any protective thick white bandaging wrapped around my head or placed anywhere on my face, so my nose wasn't broken. I couldn't feel it. Although, it was more than likely that the doctors or a nurse reset it, so I wasn't too worried. I was also one hundred percent sure that I had a nasty black eye or something like that. With some effort, I managed to very carefully and very slowly turn my head so I could glance over at my right arm habitually, then my left arm. I cursed in my head at what I saw.

My left arm was broken. It was in a light blue cast. I couldn't determine how badly my arm was broken at the moment, but still, having a broken arm sucked ass. I knew that I had cuts, scrapes, and bruises all around my body. I inhaled and exhaled normally. I could do that no problem. The only thing that was a little hard to do was to take deep breaths, but I expected that, seeing as my ribs were busted to hell. Every time I tried to take deep breaths, a white hot stabbing pain would shoot through me.

Fucking hell, I looked like shit. I smacked my desert dry lips together. I couldn't lick my lips, seeing as I had no moisture in my mouth. I also had a horrendous stale taste in my mouth. Probably from not brushing my teeth in a while. Gross.

I shifted my feet slowly because they were asleep. Bad decision on my part. I made a loud noise of pain, unable to help myself. "Fucking shit…" I cursed.

Chris's head snapped up and his eyes flew open. He pushed his blonde curtain of hair out of his face with his other hand so I could see his eyes. "Gordie?"

"Hey…" I murmured, then swallowed hard.

"Hey." He greeted. His voice was soft and smooth. "How are you feeling, buddy?"

"Like I got run over by a large truck, burnt to a crisp, then had a house dropped on me." I said with a groan. "What time is it? What day is it?"

"It's uh," he glanced at his watch, "three-fifty-six in the afternoon." He said quietly. Then he winced. "And it's Friday, Gordie. You've been out for five weeks."

I blinked, trying to wrap my head around that fact. Holy shit. " _Five weeks_?! I've been unconscious for that long?!" I demanded, then coughed dryly. I winced. Yuck.

"Yeah, man." He said, running his hand through his hair again. "You scared the shit out of me."

"Sorry." I said softly. "How bad are my injuries?"

Chris sighed and was about to list off my injuries, when I quickly said with a wince. "Never mind that Chris, I know how bad they are. How did I get here?" I asked, curiously. And I was completely honestly curious, too. There was no way in Hell Chris could've easily snuck out of the campground undetected, especially not with that many people around. Especially not with those extremely scary, annoying, and violent brutes of human beings.

"I convinced the Cobras to let me take you to a hospital."

I rose my eyebrow at that. I wasn't expecting that answer, let me tell you that right now. "How the hell did you convince them to let you go?" I questioned.

Chris looked a little bit proud of himself now. I could see it in his blue eyes. "I told them that they'd have to pay a hefty fine, go on probation, and I told Ace that he could be jailed for one to ten years for being the one who commanded his slimy gang members to beat you up, and I told the rest of them that they'd go into the slammer for a year for either willingly participating in the child abuse - also known as abusing you - or standing around and not stopping it." He listed.

I blinked. "You remembered all that from one of your classes?"

"Hell yeah, man." He smirked, looking proud of himself. "The Law class."

I smiled. "That's amazing, Chris. I'm proud of you."

"Thanks, Gordie." He grinned at me.

I suddenly remembered my parents. They weren't in the room. "Where… where are my parents, Chris?" Maybe they were getting coffee or something. They lived off of that shit.

Chris looked away. "They're not here." I could hear an annoyed edge in his voice.

I bit my lower lip and nodded, quickly trying to fight down the sudden all-to-familiar surge of disappointment that spiked through my bones. "O-oh. Okay." I muttered. Despite the disappointment that ran through my veins, I really shouldn't have been all that surprised. My parents were always ignoring me, those assholes. A large part of me hated them with every fiber of my being, while the rational part of me said that they're still my parents; I can't hate them with every fiber of my being. That's not what any child would do. A child wouldn't hate his or her parents so much that he or she would rather see them dead than breathing, and that's not something _I'd_ ever actually rationally wish on my parents. Maybe I'd say that out loud or think that in my head when my emotions were running rampant, but I'd never wish that on them.

But… but still, Chris really, REALLY hated his parents; his father more so than his mother. He had said it to me multiple times. He hated his father for degrading him and calling him shitty nicknames, ignoring him and abusing him on a daily/weekly basis. He told me that he hated his mother for constantly leaving the house to try and escape her hellish life, her constantly drunken and asshole of a husband, her mostly decent children - well, they were all decent except for Eyeball, he was really the only shitty, annoying asshole kid in the Chambers household - the rest of the Chambers kid's were nice enough to me and everyone else though despite their bad reputation in town - and the admittedly gross, completely depressing state of her own freaking house.

"Hey, Gordie," Chris said, pulling me out of my thoughts. "You remember my crotchety bitch of a math teacher Mrs. Teuton?"

"Yeah."

"You remember how I told you that she said that if I don't get a seventy-four on my next test, I'd fail math class this quarter?"

I nodded, motioning for him to go on.

"Well," he licked his lips, looking excited. "I got a one hundred on it."

I blinked in shock, alert now. "No fucking way." I breathed out.

"Fucking believe it, man." He grinned, squeezing my hand gently, his face shining with pride and even excitement.

"Chris, I'm so proud of you." I smiled widely.

"Thanks, Gordie." He let go of my hand and let it drop to his side, but I quickly reached over and grabbed it back, slowly lacing our fingers together. Chris's head snapped up from the thin hospital blanket that was spread across my body to me, surprise flickering across his features.

"Gordie?" Chris asked softly. He wasn't pulling his hand away from my own hand, but maybe that was because I was holding on so tight, refusing to let go.

"Yeah…" I breathed out, my voice quiet.

"You scared the shit out of me, man. I thought you were…" he struggled to get these next few words out, "I thought you were dead!" He said, voice thick with emotion.

I winced and squeezed his hand again, feeling sadness swell up inside of me. "Hey, I'm right here, okay? I'm not going anywhere." I promised, but Chris didn't look convinced enough. I saw tears welling up in his ocean blue eyes, and I flinched when a few tears rolled down his cheeks.

"Please don't go anywhere, Gordie." He whispered.

I slowly ran my thumb over his knuckles, trying to be comforting. Chris moved his chair closer to me, so now we were looking at each other directly in the eyes. My dark brown eyes met his ocean blue ones. "I won't." I said. "I'll be right here next to you always, okay?"

Chris nodded, and I saw his eyes flicker down to my lips. My stomach twisted violently, but it was in a good way. I licked my lips slowly, biting down on my lower lip. "Chris?" I breathed out.

"Yeah, Gordo?" He asked, his blue eyes transfixed on my lips.

I felt my heart swell up at the nickname. "Thank you for everything. Thank you for having my back, for sticking by me through the thick and thin." I smiled softly.

"You're welcome, Gordie." He smiled softly at me.

"I don't know how I can ever repay you." I admitted quietly, my eyes flickering across his tan face.

"Well," he said softly, "there is one way."

"Yeah? And what's that?"

Chris didn't verbally answer me. Instead, he carefully carded his fingers through my hair before his hand slipped down to my jaw. He cupped my jaw with his hand carefully. "Is this okay?"

My breath hitched in my throat. I nodded slowly. "It's more than okay." My voice wasn't above a whisper.

Chris nodded, but even though I said that it was fine, he still searched my face for any signs of discomfort, and I knew there were none present on my face. My heart thumped quickly in my chest, as fast as a hummingbird's wings. I had never kissed a girl before, never had a girlfriend, and here I was, about to kiss my best friend who was a guy, for the first time ever. I knew that Chris hadn't had any girlfriends either. I had always wondered why seeing as Chris Chambers was (mostly) popular in our high school. He could've gotten any girl that he wanted with a simple snap of his fingers, but here he was, about to kiss the loser of tenth grade, Gordie LaChance. The guy who just recently got beat up, and who was in a hospital, looking more than the worse for wear. Hell, I must've looked like fucking dog shit physically. I felt even worse on the inside. He was about to kiss me. _Me_. Christopher Alexander Chambers was about to kiss his best friend since we were toddlers. He was going to kiss _me_ , Gordie Patrick LaChance.

Chris took a small intake of breath before he slowly leaned forward. Then, he very, very carefully pressing his warm lips onto mine.

I swear to God, I almost stopped breathing right then and there.

Bringing my hand up to tangle it into his blonde hair, I slowly kissed him back.

 **XXX**

 **Ace's POV**

I was sitting on the hood of my trusty grey 1949 Ford custom car that ran prettily enough to make both guys and girls alike want to take it out for a spin, smoking a cancer stick. The co-leader of the Cobras and my best friend Richard "Eyeball" Chambers was sitting next to me, fixing his dark brown, naturally slightly curled hair so it stuck up a tiny bit more. He didn't have a mirror or anything, but his hair looked decent without it, even without him attempting to fix it. His dark blue Yankee's baseball cap (well, it was that LaChance kid's baseball cap, but it was Eyeball's now; it had been his for three years after he had stolen it from him when we came out of that small family run store - the Minkus flower shop - and were real assholes to them) was resting on his left thigh. An opened pack of Marlboro cigarettes was resting in between us. A six pack of a beer brand, Schlitz beer, rested on the parking lot ground in front of us. Eyeball's quarter drunk beer bottle was on the ground, off to the left of him. I had already drank one about half an hour ago.

The bright sun shone down on us, warming up the metal of the hood. I had parked my car in a deserted parking lot of a supermarket about three hours away from my house. Don't ask me why I decided to drive three hours in the hot Oregon sun and drag a more-than-willing-to-come-with-me Eyeball out in the middle of freaking nowhere, because I honestly couldn't tell you why. I had my car keys safely tucked away in my front right jean pocket. My dark blonde hair was up in a nearly styled quiff.

I exhaled the cigarette smoke slowly, pulling it away from my lips. "How do you think that LaChance kid's doing?" I questioned suddenly. I don't know why I asked.

"Probably in shit condition, as you can imagine." Eyeball said absently, his attention still focused fixing his hair. Yeah. My boys did do a number on his skinny ass. I wondered if he was dead. A part of me hoped so, but a bigger part of me hoped he wasn't. I really didn't want to go a maximum security prison for murdering a fifteen year old kid.

"I'm just worried about his…" I trailed off, struggling to find the words. I put the cigarette up to my lips and exhaled slowly, the smoke curling up towards the hot sun.

Eyeball caught on. "Nah, man." We're good like that. We can finish each other's thoughts no problem. We're best friends. "He's probably not dead, if that's what you're worried about."

"You think so?"

Eyeball nodded and took a drink of his beer. "Trust me, my little brother would've been moping around the house if he was." I knew he was talking about Chris.

"Yeah?"

"Yeah, man. He's always awake before anyone else in the house now, including my old woman, and Veronica told me that Chris's always long gone after she wakes up to get ready for work. She's the second one to get up now. She was usually the third one to get up, after my mother and Tyler, but now she's the second one, since Tyler's been sleeping in a lot more these days." He explained.

I rose my eyebrow at that. Mrs. Chambers was always up at six-thirty in the morning sharp, no exceptions, to get ready for work. For Chris to be "long gone" after she gets up to start her day, he must've woken up at least at six o'clock every single morning. Eyeball told me that Veronica was always up at seven-forty in the morning, and that Tyler was always up at eight-fifteen in the morning. Chris was always up at eight-thirty-five in the morning. For Tyler Chambers to wake up well, _well_ past Julia and Carl's normal wake up times shocked me. (Julia's normal wake up time was at nine in the morning, and Carl's normal wake up time was at ten-fifteen in the morning.) Mr. Chambers had a flexible waking up and going to sleep schedule. He could wake up at any time. He could wake up at eight-twenty-five in the morning to one-thirty in the afternoon. Mostly that depended on how hard he hit the bottle the day before, if he'd have the strength to move out of the shitty bed, how bad his hangover was, or if he even felt like getting up out of bed even with the most tiny of hangover headaches. Mr. Chambers was a lazy fucking human being who also physically, mentally, and emotionally abused his children, Chris more often than the others. Not like my father was any better than Mr. Chambers. My life wasn't any better than the Chambers kids. I was in the same boat as them. Except my mother died when I was eight years old. Their mother just ignores her really shitty home life and works all day and stays up well past nighttime to avoid facing her life head on. (Brandon told me that sometimes she got home in the early morning hours, one or two in the morning. Brandon Chambers was a light sleeper, so he heard her walking around at the ass crack of dawn, or he heard the sounds coming from the TV.)

I licked my lips, shaking my head to clear the thoughts out of my head. "Speaking of your little brother…" I trailed off.

Eyeball looked over at me now. "What about him?"

"Your little brother Christopher is a real fucking asshole, you know that?" When he nodded with a slight smirk, I continued. "The way he spewed out all the shit about us getting arrested, thrown in jail, paying a fine, and all that other shit just to scare us? Pretty ballsy move for a kid with next to none self confidence." I commented, then took a puff from the cigarette and exhaled, tilting my head up towards the hot sun for a moment before looking over at him. I shifted a bit, suddenly glad that I wore pants that covered the backs of my thighs. If I hadn't, they would be burning something awful right now.

Eyeball stopped fiddling with his hair after a couple seconds of silence, seemingly satisfied with it. His hair looked better than it did before. Even without the convenience of a mirror, he managed to fix it up. It looked pretty freaking rad, if I'm honest. In one smooth motion, he swooped down and picked up his beer bottle with his left hand and took a drink out of it, clutching the bottle tightly in his hand. He rested the bottle on his right thigh, looking amused at my comment. "Yeah. I know, man. I was surprised myself." The baseball cap was still carefully balanced on his knee. It hadn't fallen off.

I took another quick drag from my cancer stick, and at the same time I did this Eyeball took another swig of beer. I exhaled slowly. He pulled the bottle away from his lips before picking the hat up. He placed it on my head, putting it down so I saw the inside of the hat, my vision shrouded in darkness for a moment before I grabbed the brim of the hat and lifted it until I could see properly. I blinked twice and looked at Eyeball, who was grinning. "Messed up your hair."

"Fuck you, Rich." I said, but there was no heat behind the words. I was the only one who could call him "Rich" or "Eye" without getting punched in the gut.

Eyeball laughed. "Yeah, I'll pass on that, thank you very much."

I punched his shoulder lightly, in a way that let him know that I was teasing him rather than being serious. "Shut up. You're an asshole, you know that?" Again, there was no heat behind my words.

Eyeball playfully flicked the hat off my head. It landed behind me, so I quickly reached back behind me and put the baseball cap back on my head. "Yeah, well this asshole is your best friend in probably the whole motherfucking universe."

I rolled my eyes and took another drag from the cigarette again, exhaling after a few seconds. I didn't want to admit that he was, because that'd be really goddamned sappy of me, and I'd probably sound like a girl to him.

We sat there on the hood of my car in peaceful silence, getting lost in our own thoughts. I was about to ask if Eyeball wanted to head back until I heard the roaring engines of two approaching vehicles heading our way, from the left of us. Eyeball and I looked over at the same time to see a sleek black 1954 Buick Skylark and a damn nice bright red 1952 Cadillac Coupe Deville leisurely coming towards us. Yes, I knew my cars. My uncle Uriah was a damn fine mechanic. He always fixed up my car when it wasn't working properly, free of charge. Although I didn't recognize the persons driving the cars, which struck me as a bit confusing and alarming because I knew everyone's faces in Castle Rock just like they knew mine, what with it being a small town and all. I knew for a fact that they weren't from the View, the way, _way_ more richer part of Castle Rock.

I glanced over at Eyeball, who was frowning, his mouth twisted into a frown too. "Who the hell are those guys?" He asked.

I shrugged my shoulders in response, turning my attention back to the newcomers.

We watched the cars stopped a couple feet away from us. The drivers killed the engines and stuffed the keys into what I assumed was their front pockets. Seven males hopped out of the cars, three from the Cadillac Coupe Deville, while the other four males hopped out from the black Buick Skylark.

I glanced over at Eyeball again, who was warily staring at the newcomers. Whoever they were, I wasn't scared of them at all. If they tried to pick a fight with us, even outmatched I'd take them all down if necessary.

The newcomers all wore faded blue jeans and different colored shirts, shoes, and all that shit. All seven of them.

For starters, there was brown-skinned kid with dark brown eyes and even darker hair was wearing a dark red shirt over a freaking jean jacket despite the hot Southern sun beating down on us. One of the males was wearing a light blue Mickey Mouse t-shirt, and I wouldn't have been scared of him if he wasn't so freaking muscled, and his hard dark green eyes that looked like they could figure out everything about your life in ten seconds flat, with tan skin so nice it would have made the most naturally tanned male or female in Castle Rock's High School really jealous. The dude was intimidatingly bigger than goddamned freaking Fuzzy, and Fuzzy's a pretty big dude himself. He was easily bigger and buffer than that Vern Tessio kid too. A dark blonde haired boy with bright, intelligent, icy blue eyes was wearing a dark green short sleeved shirt. The older male next to him was really freaking tan, he had incredibly dark black hair and dark brown eyes, and he wearing white, black, red and orange checkered flannel, with a plain white t-shirt underneath. One of the male's was wearing a dark brown leather jacket and a plain black shirt. He had dark brown eyes and dark brown hair. A boy with dark brown hair and cerulean eyes and pale skin was wearing a light blue t-shirt and a jean jacket. They were all a shoulder's length away from the biggest guy in the group, who I assumed was the leader of the group. The leader of the group was even taller, more muscled and even more intimidating than that guy wearing the light blue Mickey Mouse t-shirt. He had dark brown hair that was slightly curled at the tips of his quiffed up hair and intelligent hazel eyes, and his freaking jawline was sharp enough to cut through the metal of my car without a hitch. He was wearing a white t-shirt with a grey button-down shirt with all the buttons undone. I could see his well defined muscles rippling underneath the white t-shirt no problem. He was really, _really_ intimidating. I fought to keep my rising nerves calm, then realized that I'm Ace freaking Merrill. I can handle these guys. I'll punch their lights out of I have to, and I know that Eyeball's got my back.

Eyeball and I hopped off the hood of my car. I took another drag of my cigarette and exhaled before putting my hand down at my side. Eyeball put his beer bottle down on the ground and tilted his head at the newcomers. "Who the hell are you guys?" He asked as I quickly readjusted the baseball cap on my head, my eyes narrowed at the seven strangers.

The leader of the group pointed at himself while running his other hand through his hair, messing up the slight curls at the very tips of his hair. "I'm Darry Curtis." He pointed at the male wearing the checkered flannel with the dark hair, "that's my brother SodaPop Curtis," then he pointed at the dark blonde haired male wearing the dark green short sleeved shirt, "that's my brother Ponyboy Curtis," then he pointed at the male in the leather jacket and black t-shirt, "that's Dally Winston," then he pointed at the guy who had dark brown hair and blue-green eyes wearing the Mickey Mouse t-shirt, "that's Two-Bit Matthews," then he pointed at the guy with dark brown hair and Kirlian wearing the light blue t-shirt and a jean jacket, "that's Steve Randle," then, finally, he pointed at the dark-skinned boy with the dark red shirt and the jean jacket, "and that's Johnny Cade." Darry cleared his throat. "We just moved here from Tulsa, Oklahoma three days ago. We're the Greaser gang."


	6. Chapter 6: The Greasers and Recovery

**Chapter Six: The Greasers and Recovery**

 **Disclaimer: I thought "why I have to keep doing this? It's stupid", but then I thought "oh damn, I don't want to get sued". Anyway, as everyone knows by now, I do not own the movie Stand By Me or the novel The Body by Stephan King, or anything or anyone that you recognize from that book/movie, like Gordie, Chris, Ace and Eyeball. I also don't own The Outsiders or any of the book/movie's characters, like Ponyboy, Dally and Steve. They all belong to their rightful owners. I only own my OC's and whatever else you don't recognize.**

 **Once again, here are the actors for Norman "Fuzzy" Bracowicz, Vince Desjardins, and Jack Mudgett:**

 **Norman "Fuzzy" Bracowicz's actor is Jared Padalecki (Fuzzy looks as Jared Padalecki did in the year 2006.)**

 **Vince Desjardins' actor is Jamie Campbell Bower.**

 **Jack Mudgett's actor is Hutch Dano.**

 **Again, here are the actors for the Greaser gang:**

 **Ponyboy Curtis's actor is C. Thomas Howell. (Ponyboy Curtis from the Outsiders.)**

 **Sodapop Curtis's actor is Rob Lowe. (Sodapop Curtis from the Outsiders.)**

 **Dallas "Dally" Winston's actor is Matt Dillion. (Dally Winston from the Outsiders.)**

 **Johnny Cade's actor is Ralph Macchio. (Johnny Cade from the Outsiders.)**

 **Steve Randle's actor is Tom Cruise. (Steve Randle from the Outsiders.)**

 **Darrel "Dally" Curtis's actor is Patrick Swayze. (Dally Curtis from the Outsiders.)**

 **Keith "Two-Bit" Matthews's actor is Emilio Estevez. (Keith "Two-Bit" Matthews from the Outsiders.)**

 **As I said before, I do not own the Outsiders or any of the characters, or anything associated with the Outsiders, including the Outsiders book by SE Hilton and the 1983 Outsiders movie, which was directed by Francis Ford Coppola. All characters and anything else that is associated with the Outsiders in both the book and the movie go to their rightful owners.**

 **Finally, I apologize in advance if there are any spelling, grammar, punctuation, sentence structure, etcetera - mistakes.**

 **Enjoy chapter six of Sink or Swim.**

 **XXX**

I stared at the seven boys, my eyebrow raised, a frown tugging at the corner of my lips. I would be lying if I said I wasn't curious. Tulsa? As in Tulsa, _Oklahoma_? That Tulsa, Oklahoma? We were in freaking _Oregon_. Was this Darry Curtis fellow trying to tell us that they drove approximately _twenty-six_ hours to move from their what-I-assume-is a bigger town of Tulsa in the state of Oklahoma to the almost depressingly small town of Castle Rock in the state of Oregon? No way in Hell. I didn't believe that. Also, why would they do that? Castle Rock's a relatively boring-ass town. There wasn't all that much to do here either, so why on Earth would they move here of all places? If they wanted something else to do, they could have moved to fucking New York City or something. They were gonna be bored out of their minds here, I could tell. Then they'll regret it and wish they _had_ moved to New York City instead of to burning old Castle Rock.

I could also tell that Eyeball was thinking along the same lines as I was, but he kept his face expressionless as he took another sip of beer. It was hard to get a read on his emotions and what he was thinking, which is I guess what he wanted. But I was - still am - his best friend, so I could read him. He was just as surprised as I was.

"You moved here from freaking Tulsa?" I questioned once I got over my initial shock.

Darry nodded. "Yeah."

"The hell would you do that for?" Eyeball asked.

"We wanted a change of scenery." Ponyboy said casually.

I frowned. "Right…"

Eyeball took the baseball cap off my head and held it tightly in his hand, fiddling with it to give his overactive mind and fidgety hands something to do. Eyeball had something called combined hyperactive and inattentive (as a mixed type), which is basically both forms of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, or ADHD. Basically, the inattentive type of ADHD means that Eyeball: does not pay attention to detail, he makes careless mistakes (on schoolwork) failing to pay attention and keep on task (mostly on schoolwork), he didn't listen to his teachers or anyone (except for me, seeing as I'm his best friend), he was sometimes unable to follow or understand instructions, especially in school, he avoided tasks that involved too much effort (he tried to control that around me, but I didn't mind that he did that), he was distracted easily, he could be forgetful at times, he always lost things that were to complete tasks, or he didn't do his tasks, period. For instance, in elementary school when he was in fourth grade - and when I was in seventh grade - he didn't do a project until the very last minute (as in he started it two days before the deadline and put it off even then), and he failed the project with a 42%. I know this because had sought me out after school got out and bitched to be about how much he hated his teachers, working, and school in general. Additionally, on top of all of that attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, Eyeball also had hyper-active impulsive type ADHD, which meant that he did most of these things: he fidgeted, he squirmed, he got up often when seated for long periods of time (like when he had been sitting on the couch for more than ten minutes without something to keep his overactive mind, hands, and basically the rest of busy) he ran or climbed up things at inappropriate times, he had trouble playing quietly - he did this even when we were little rug rats - he talked too much sometimes, he talked out of turn or blurting out (which usually got him clobbered by his old man) he often interrupted without meaning to (or sometimes on purpose), and he was often "on the go" as if "driven by a motor", which is was his siblings often commented before humans gained the medicinal and scientific technologies to better understand what ADHD actually was. Eyeball's siblings would say that he was often "on the go" as if "driven by a motor" to me multiple times throughout their lives. Eyeball Chambers had been my best friend since he was five years old and I was eight years old, seeing as there was that three year age difference. I was in the third grade.

Eyeball didn't have a lunch to eat at lunch time, he said he forgot it at his house (later on in life he admitted to me that his parents didn't really feed him at all; even when he was four years old his mother was always out doing whatever shit she felt like and his father was always a useless drunk). He shyly came up to me and my elementary school friends and asked if anyone could spare a small snack for him, because he didn't have anything to eat. At first I kind of rudely told him to get lost, but he looked so tired and frail that I caved in. I gave him half of my chocolate chip cookie, a half of my ham and cheese sandwich and my other juice box (I had two). He looked grateful and sat down next to me and started up a conversation between himself, my friends, and myself. I didn't mind that he sat next to me and talked to me. With his light brown hair and his light brown eyes, he sharply contrasted to me with my light blonde hair and icy blue eyes, but that's what made our friendship bud and made us so good friends so quickly. Our personalities were similar too, so we often butted heads a lot of the time, but we always became closer after our little pointless arguments, if that makes any sense. We've been best friends for years. And nothing can change that. I've literally watched my best friend Eyeball Chambers grow up in front of my eyes.

"So," I said conversationally, raising my eyebrow at the "Greaser Gang". "What made you decide to move here?"

Darry licked his lips. "So this is why we decided to move here…"

 **XXX**

 ***Eight weeks later - Date: November 5th, 1962. Day: Monday.***

 **Gordie's POV**

I slowly flexed my now non-broken arm and fingers, keeping my eyes fixed on my fingers as I slowly moved them. There wasn't any pain that shot through me (there hadn't been for a while) but just to be sure, I wasn't going to lift anything heavy or strain my fingers too much any time soon. My broken toes had finished healing up three weeks ago. Most of my scrapes, cuts, and bruises had faded, including my black eye, thankfully. My fractured and broken ribs had taken six and a half weeks to heal completely. It was an agonizingly slow process, but my ribs did eventually heal up, so that was good. Chris, Teddy and Vern had been by my side the entire time I was recovering in the hospital room, especially on the weekends. They always walked through the door of my room every morning at the same time every day on the weekends until they had to literally be - in most cases - dragged out of my semi-small cramped white room by the doctors and nurses who had announced that visiting hours were over. Sometimes the other Chambers siblings (minus Eyeball) visited me. So did Kristina and Abigail. They brought sweets and other things like that to make me feel better, which was really nice of them. Maya, Lucas, Riley and Farkle stopped by a few times too. They were really nice to me.

Chris and I hadn't talked about the kiss between us whenever we were alone together. In fact, we avoided the subject at all costs. It was like Chris had forgotten the kiss had happened between us, but I didn't. I _couldn't_. Your best friend kissing you isn't something you can just forget so goddamn easily. Whenever we were around friends, we acted completely normal around each other, like that kiss _hadn't_ happened between us in the first place, but I could feel that our friendship was strained, a little frayed at the edges. We were just caught up in the emotional moment - I convinced myself of that the morning after the kiss, a long few hours of sitting there on my bed, convincing myself of that and thinking of other things that didn't pertain to the kiss me and Chris shared. I convinced myself that our friendship wasn't ruined, and it wasn't. When Chris casually walked in my hospital room after the kisses happened, he looked at peace, but I could tell there was something slightly off kilter just by looking into his ocean blue eyes for a long enough time. But nevertheless, despite our forced appearances and smiles and laughter in front of our friends and whatnot, I could still feel the tension between us.

I pushed the thought out of my mind and focused on Johnny, Ponyboy and Sodapop, who were snickering about some inside joke I didn't understand. Two-Bit and Steve were talking about cars, how they worked. I was keeping pace with Ponyboy, whose eyes sparkled with humor. Ponyboy and Johnny wore their emotions on their sleeves, kind of like how I did.

In case you're wondering the ages of the Greaser Gang, here's how old everyone was when we became friends with them: Ponyboy's fifteen, Johnny's sixteen, Sopdapop's seventeen, Dally is twenty-one, Steve is seventeen, Darry is seventeen, and Two-Bit is eighteen.

Me and Ponyboy became friends quickly, sharing our theories on various topics and having a shared passionate interest in writing. Also, me and Sodapop became quick friends too, bonding over a couple of mutual interests that weren't strictly writing. The "Greaser Gang" moved in a couple neighborhoods away from my house. I think that Steve guy is living with "Two-Bit", Dally and Johnny, and then obviously the Curtis brothers Sodapop, Ponyboy and Darry are living in a separate house a few doors down from Steve's house. Vern and Two-Bit got along extremely well. Steve, Teddy and Dally got along really quick, probably because they had the same sense of humor and similar hard-ass, sarcastic, "tough-guy" personalities. Darry, Ponyboy, Sodapop, Johnny, and Dally became quick friends with Chris, probably because of their somewhat similar lifestyles and home lives, Chris becoming closer with Sodapop, Ponyboy, Johnny and Dally rather than Darry, seeing as they were closer in age with Chris than Darry was. Chris was fifteen, while Darry was twenty-one years old. I eventually became friends with Steve, Dally and Two-Bit, but a little slower than the rest. My friends became friends with the rest of the Greaser Gang. Nonetheless we were all good friends with each other. Steve, Two-Bit, Ponyboy, Sodapop and Johnny enrolled at Castle Rock High School over the weekend. Ponyboy, Sodapop, and Johnny sophomores (AKA tenth graders) like us, despite Johnny and Sodapop being older than fifteen years old. Steve and Two-Bit are juniors, in the grade above us - eleventh grade. Apparently, Sodapop dropped out of high school when their parents died in a car crash when Darry was around eighteen years old. Sodapop dropped out of high school in order to help Darry pay the bills by getting a job at a local gas station called the DX. Sodapop and Ponyboy have closest sibling relationship I've ever seen; their relationship was even more closer than my relationship with Denny. The Greaser Gang were/are protective of one another, kind of like how me, Chris, Teddy and Vern were. Except their just a little bit more tight-knit than us - they're only slightly more tight-knit than me, Vern, Chris and Teddy though - seeing as they've technically been alive longer than us (well actually Ponyboy's mine, Chris, Teddy and Vern's age but that's not the point.)

"Hey Gordie," Sodapop said suddenly, looking over at me. We were heading towards Chris's house to pick him up and go to school. Teddy and Vern would meet us at the cement front steps of the school.

"Yeah?" I asked, licking my lips and shouldering my bag.

"Why does Teddy always talk about storming the beach in Normandy?" He seemed perplexed, as if the question had been bothering him for a while now. I thought about that, then knew the answer.

"Yeah, why does he?" The rest of the boys asked.

I ran my hand through my hair, letting out a sigh. "His father served in the army. Teddy's not lying, Mr. Duchamp was at Normandy. He was the first one on one of the planes to Normandy. As in willing. He didn't get drafted, he _volunteered_." I explained.

The boys digested this as we walked past the Chambers' mailbox and up the longer-than-necessary driveway. I knew they were trying to wrap their heads around the fact that Mr. Duchamp headed off to war without hesitation, that he was the first one to sign up.

Steve spoke up after a few seconds, absentmindedly kicking a small pebble with the toe of his boot. "You mean he went to D-Day?"

I nodded. "He did. Mr. Duchamp survived Normandy and fortunately the rest of the war without any permanent physical injuries, but when he got back to the States he got shipped to a mental institution a few counties over from Castle Rock, for lasting mental health issues after the war was over." I explained, walking up the front steps and knocking on the Chambers door. I'm not sure if Teddy wanted me to tell these boys about his father's current whereabouts, but Sodapop and Steve did ask me questions, and who am I to deny their wishes? That'd be rude of me.

"Wow." Everyone chorused. They most likely didn't know what else to say, but I couldn't blame them. It took a while for me, Chris and Vern to digest the information when Teddy himself told us when we were all nine years old.

I nodded. "Yeah. Teddy visits him occasionally, when he's off from school and the like." I said, and the group nodded at that, and we let the subject drop.

The door opened, and Chris appeared, a hand fiddling with his hair, his other hand gripping his backpack strap. He waved at us, showing off his pearly whites. "Hey." He smiled.

We all greeted him with a wave and a chorus of hellos. Chris closed the door and we walked down the driveway, chatting and laughing about things.

Chris tugged on my shirt and I fell in step beside him, glancing confusedly at him. "Gordie?"

"Yeah, Chris?"

"If that Carlyle asshole tries to touch you, I'll beat his white trash ass into the ground."

"Okay."

"Whose Carlyle?" Sodapop asked.

"Preston Carlyle." Chris answered, tightening the strap on his backpack. "He's Gordie's "main" bully. Asshole beat him up real bad a few times."

"What does he look like?" He asked with a frown.

"You'll know him when you see him." I muttered.

Sodapop raised his eyebrow at me, unconvinced. "Really?"

"Yeah. You will." I said, louder this time. Sodapop just nodded.

We walked to the school in silence. We saw Vern and Teddy and greeted/waved at them happily.

"How do you feel, Gordie?" Vern asked. He had asked me this question frequently when I first got out of the hospital, and throughout the weeks.

"Better. No more broken bones. Not in pain anymore." I answered, smiling at my friend.

"That's good." Vern said, patting my shoulder.

I nodded, saying my agreement.

We all walked inside of the school and went our separate ways. Steve, Two-Bit and Johnny left with Vern and Teddy to find their lockers, but Ponyboy and Sodapop stayed with me and Chris, which I honestly greatly appreciated. Mainly because I didn't want to face the clearly-there awkwardness between me and Chris, and also because I wanted to talk with them and give them the lowdown of our school; who to avoid, who to keep your head down around, what to eat and what not to eat, how homework and tests and quizzes were graded, and the varying annoying, hardass-ness, bitchiness and douchebag-ness of each of the teachers in our school. You know, things like that. But despite wanting to help out our new Greaser friends, I didn't want to face what had happened between me and Chris in my damn hospital room - not even three weeks after that little kiss - or, those kiss _es_ more accurately - happened. I wasn't up to it. Not mentally or emotionally. But I knew that we had to talk about what happened between us in my hospital room eventually. No sense in making things worse, that much more awkward between us until we couldn't even stay in the same room as each other. No sense in making our friendship break apart completely. I really didn't want what happened between me, Vern, Teddy and Chris ( _our three year "hiatus" of me and Chris not speaking with Vern and Teddy, and them not speaking with us, and Vern and Teddy not speaking to_ each other _for three long years_ ). Because to me then, and ( _even to me now_ ), if mine and Chris's really close friendship had ever went off the real deep end, if something really horrible had happened between us that made us stop being friends completely… I didn't know what I would have done with myself. I might've just killed myself and left it at that, without saying goodbye, and when I was sure that Chris wouldn't try to convince me to stop; to interrupt me and stop me from killing myself. Depressing thought, I know. But I honestly didn't want to live on this Earth if me and Chris "broke up" as friends. I knew for a fact that Chris would rather jump in front of a moving freight train then stop being my friend permanently. He had never directly said it to my face, and I knew that if he hadn't said it directly to _my_ face, he hadn't said a word about it to Vern, Teddy, or our Greaser gang friends directly, but I knew that he would do it. Kill himself if we stopped permanently being friends, I mean. Now that I think about it, that might have been extremely unhealthily codependent and maybe a bit emotionally manipulating - and I suppose that it _was_ extremely unhealthily codependent and a little emotionally manipulating, but we've been best friends since we were young. We knew each other since we were seven years old, but we knew each other longer than that. He and I went to the same preschool and elementary school, but we hadn't actually became friends until we were seven years old. Mom said that me and Chris were born in the same hospital at nearly the same time, but seven months apart, with him being older and me being younger. We stuck by each other no matter what. Sure, we've had a couple nasty fights ( _and some a fuck ton more nastier than others, but they were always verbal fights, we_ NEVER _got physical with each other - neither one of us slapped, threw punches at, or kicked the other person_ ), but who in the world hasn't fought with their best friend or someone their close with every once and a while? No one, that's who. Human beings are stupid sometimes. Real goddamned fucking stupid. I finally understand why Teddy was the way he was; why he was the stubborn, sarcastic and angry jackass I grew up with and had actually been close friends with. Whenever I was with him, ( _and it was usually never without Chris or Vern_ ) he had constantly said that he was surrounded by losers, jackasses, fuckheads and "whiny motherfuckers who bitched too much shit about shit and as a result never got any shit done". He regularly said that he was torn between wanting to kill everyone around him and killing himself - with the exception of us and Kristina and Abigail, of course, he'd always say as an afterthought. He was stressed out more often then not. I knew he was extremely stressed out about a lot of things, but I had always thought that was a result of his shit home life and mentally unstable father, and that was part of the problem.

( _The bigger issue that I didn't know about shouldn't have shocked me as much as it did, but when I heard this news - the news that I'm about to explain - you'll understand why I was shocked._

 _I could never figure out what the "bigger issue" meant until I found out that Teddy Duchamp had self-admitted himself into a sanitarium in the great year of 1969, at age twenty-two. It was one of the sanitariums in Oregon, across the state, a long, long drive away from Castle Rock despite it being across the state, not across the goddamned fucking country. It was mainly for PTSD after he was forced back to the United States by the army at the very end of when the Americans withdrawed our troops from the Vietnam War. Teddy was forced to be shipped back to the United States eight months before the military/army withdrawed their forces from Vietnam. I don't know what happened to make him snap, I just knew that I wanted to avoid thinking or speaking about anything remotely close with Teddy's PTSD and the war at all costs. I didn't want to think about the war, but I knew that it was on everyone's minds because it was a nationwide embarrassment. I also didn't want to talk about the war mainly because along with Teddy motherfucking Duchamp, Ace goddamned Merrill and my best friend in the whole entire universe Christopher Alexander fucking Chambers were forced to serve in the Vietnam War as well. Granted, Ace and Chris didn't self-admit themselves into a sanitarium, but it was clear-as-day-obvious that they were kind of mentally fucked up after they came back to the United States from the war. Although Ace and Chris didn't have any lasting mental and/or physical effects. They didn't have to go to any freaking loony bins. They didn't have any torn limbs. They had all their fingers, toes, eyes, hands, arms. Their skin hadn't been burnt off or badly-to-mildly scarred because of the burning by the opposing side, like Chris had told me that some other guys' skin was. Their intestines weren't missing. Their brains hadn't been blown out by a bullet or whatever, which was a miracle in itself. Although, Teddy was the only one who was extremely mentally fucked up, so much that he actually_ self-admitted _himself into a mental institution_.)

I got sidetracked. Anyway, back to what I was saying before: the Greaser gang became some of our closest friends since they first arrived at Castle Rock, but I knew that Chris wouldn't really confide whatever he was thinking to the Greaser gang, not until he got to know them better and that we (meaning me and Chris; Teddy and Vern had already gotten comfortable being around the Greaser gang) got completely comfortable around each other and the Greaser gang, like we had with Vern, Teddy, and their wonderful and kind girlfriends Kristina and Abigail. But at the same time, the Greaser gang were also friends with the Cobras. Which made it awkward between us, well, us and the Cobras, that is. The Greaser gang had no idea of our intense hatred for each other; me, Chris, Teddy and Vern's vendetta against the Cobras. Although me and Chris's had more a ton more hatred for the Cobras - a lot more than Teddy and Vern did, but my friends still really hated their guts. They always would, even up until the day they met their extremely, extremely unfortunate and untimely deaths. I'm sure that Teddy and Vern are rolling in their graves in the present time, seeing as I became best friends with Ace and Eyeball - the leader and the right hand man of the Cobras - years down the line.

"…So that's what I said to him after he said that I wasn't allowed to change the channel whenever Micky Mouse is on." Ponyboy was saying. I blinked slowly, realizing that I had missed the entire conversation that was going on around me. Crap. Damn it all to hell. I shook my head, mechanically opening up my stupid locker. I quickly grabbed the books I needed and closed my locker.

"You good, Gordie?" Chris asked.

I nodded. "Yeah. Let's go." I said, and me, Chris, Sodapop and Ponyboy started walking down the hall, towards our classes.

 **XXX**

I bit my lower lip, flipping another page in my comic book. I had read it once before when I was ten years old, but had decided to re-read it again. I was up in the treehouse by myself, just hanging out. I had briefly thought about digging through the drawers to find and light up a cancer stick, but I decided against it, seeing as the clean, crisp fresh air outside did wonders for my brain. Besides, I didn't want to be distracted by turning my head to puff out the smoke while I was reading. I admit that I could multitask pretty well, but God forbid the cigarette accidentally drops from my mouth and onto the book, or a spark ignites on the "couch" or catches on my clothes. That would be bad. That's not a can of worms I'd want to open.

I glanced at the other page and read the first half of it when I heard the secret knock. I told whoever was to come on up, engrossed in my comic book, expecting it to be Teddy or Vern, or mainly Ponyboy; Ponyboy had asked to meet me here so we could talk about "things". I wasn't sure what _that_ implied, but I thought I'd let him talk, because why not right? I looked up, my face morphing into a carefully neutral expression once I saw that it was Chris. "Hi, Chris." I said stiffly.

Chris swallowed and nodded at me. "Hi Gordie." He said awkwardly. The entire dynamic of the treehouse changed when he greeted me. It became extremely awkward, fast. I briefly glanced at the only entryway of the treehouse, wondering if I could make a break for it and go back home, ignoring Chris entirely in the process of leaving the treehouse. Or if I swan-dived out the window and sprinted towards my house, granted if I had no injuries from falling headfirst out of a treehouse. But I knew that Chris would stop me before I could attempt either option. Especially me taking a rather painful "swan-dive".

"What do you want, Chris?" I asked, a dark, biting tone underlaying my words.

"I was just gonna come up here and have a smoke, man." He replied in a calm tone, shifting his weight from one foot to the other. "You got a lighter?"

"No."

"Oh. There one in the drawer?"

I nodded and waved my hand towards the drawer where the cigarette containers were kept. "By all means, have at it. Should be in the normal place." I said, then continued reading my comic book. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw that Chris glanced over the drawer where we kept our cigarette boxes, our lighters, our multiple decks of playing cards, and other miscellaneous crap. He strode over to the drawer and tapped quickly his fingers against the drawer, deciding not to open it for whatever reason. I flipped another page, automatically ignoring the tapping, as I was completely used to it. Him drumming his fingers against things was a habit of his. Chris tended to tap objects like pencils and pens against desks or books, or drum his fingers against his outer thighs or against a table, or he'd tap a drinking glass with his fingers. You know, those kinds of things. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw him quickly look over at me, as if he was awaiting some kinda order. He drummed his fingers against the drawer quickly, and there was a sharp, steady, unchanging rhythmic pitter-patter, pitter-patter, pitter-patter, pitter-patter, pitter-patter, pitter-patter, pitter-patter that sliced through the awkward silence. It was like Chris was "bitten by a boogie tap-monster" ( _Vern's words, not mine_ ). I looked up at the sounds of Chris opening up the drawer, his fingers still tapping rapidly away at the drawer's wooden surface. I could tell that he didn't even realize he was doing it. I could hear Chris moved things around in the drawer, rifling through it. I frowned when he shut it, coming up empty-handed. "It's not in there?" I questioned, a small frown tugging at my lips. Where could it have gone? I hadn't touched it. But maybe Teddy or Vern moved the pack of smokes?

Chris shook his head. "No. Although I did see the next couple volumes of that comic book you're reading in the drawer." I had read those ones a long time ago, too. I nodded, then turned a page.

"…Cool." Is the only thing I said. I glanced down at the page, reading it, now only quarter-paying attention to Chris and his quest to find a lousy goddamned box of cigarettes. Chris looked in a couple more of the treehouses' drawers, becoming increasingly frustrated when he kept coming up empty handed. But there was one last drawer near my foot. I was using it was a footrest. I moved my foot when he asked me to move it, and Chris bent down and opened it up. He made a triumphed noise once he found a box and a lighter. He shut the drawer and sat next to me. I looked over at him for a few long seconds before flipping another page, my eyes still trained on his face. I was almost done with the thrilling comic book. "You look like you wanna speak to me, man." I said, placing my foot back on my little footrest.

Chris didn't say anything as opened the pack, shaking out one of the white cigarettes before closing the pack, throwing it on the table in front of him. I looked at the other page, and I heard the lighter flick to life. He closed the lighter and placed it on front of him, then inhaled. While he inhaled, I let out a quiet sigh, waiting patiently for him to say something.

Chris turned his head away from me so he could blow the cancer stick's smoke out of his mouth without me starting to hack up a lung from the smoke getting in my face. Which I greatly appreciated. "I… maybe I do. Man, I'm not sure." He admitted, shrugging his shoulders.

I regarded him with icy eyes. "How do you not know?" I asked.

"I'm confused, is all." He tried to defend himself.

"That doesn't make any sense." I retorted, narrowing my eyes at him.

"I… I know it doesn't." He said quietly, then took another drag from the cigarette.

"At least you're aware of it." I said icily. I saw Chris wince at my tone. We sat in awkward silence for a couple minutes, me reading my comic book and Chris smoking.

"Are… are we gonna talk about what happened, Gordie?" Chris asked, cutting through the silence. I could hear the fear mixed with anticipation in his voice.

"No." Was my automatic response.

Chris swallowed hard and lapsed into silence. I continued to ignore him.

 **XXX**

 **Ace's POV**

"Here, man." Eyeball said, gently tapping my shoulder with the beer he had just gotten out from the cooler that was in the backseat of my car. After placing the tool I was using down, I glanced up from the work I was doing on the inside of my car and accepted the beer with a quick thanks. A few days ago, something started making a strange rattling noise under the hood of my car. I had ignored it up until now. Me and Eyeball were going to the next couple towns over to cause mischief and/or hang out in a different setting than boring old Castle Rock. Eyeball had decided to come with me, since I didn't want to be lonely and bored as fuck all by myself. So, I picked Eyeball up from his house and drove out of Castle Rock. The ride went somewhat smoothly for about forty minutes, meaning that we ignored the strange rattling noise until we couldn't stand it anymore. I swear to you I almost lost my damned mind a few times. I pulled over on the side of the road, popped open the hood and inspected the "organs" of the car, as my uncle Uriah called them. I knew what was wrong with the car, and thankfully I knew how to fix it up without it taking too long. I was almost done fixing it, too. It would take another twenty minutes tops, if everything I did went without a hitch.

Eyeball patted my shoulder with his hand again as I popped open the beer cap and let it fall to the ground with a plink. "You're welcome, buddy." He said. Despite the fact that he was three years younger than me, Eyeball liked calling me buddy. We started with the nicknames when I was in eighth grade, and when little Eyeball Chambers was in fifth grade. At first I was a little weirded out by Eyeball calling me "buddy" but then I got used to it pretty quickly - within a week. We only called each other "buddy" (or any other nickname we had come up with throughout the years) when it was just the two of us, alone. When there was nobody else around, _ever_. No one knew about the nicknames me and Ace called each other. Not even the other members of our gang. Nobody. It was just us. It was like our little secret, one that nobody else knew about. Not even Gordie and Chris knew about it.

I took a long swing of icy cold beer, then pulled the bottle away from my lips. "I've got a girlfriend." I blurted out randomly. A small grin flashed across my lips.

Eyeball raised his eyebrow. "I know that. You've been going out with her for two weeks. You tell me that you have a girlfriend constantly."

"I know, I know, and I'm sorry for that." I apologized, the grin melting off my face at his annoyed tone like sugar in hot water. "It's just that I can't believe it myself." And it was true. Girlfriends - as in a one hundred percent romantic relationship with a girl - weren't really my thing. One night stands and the occasional short fling with girls were my more my style. At that time, in my twenty years of life on Earth, I hadn't ever thought that I'd be in an _actual_ relationship with a living breathing girl, a relationship where I wasn't collecting my clothes off the ground or breaking off the fling carelessly, without any emotion whatsoever, in my life. But I eventually found the one, and she made me incredibly happy. My (first steady) beautiful girlfriend's name was Gabriella (Gabby) Wilson. She had dark brown hair and light brown eyes. Bonus: Gabby had a smoking hot bod. She had a personality like mine, one where she wouldn't take any bullshit from anyone, this attitude that screamed "I don't give a shit about anything or anybody". But she could also be sweet, caring and funny whenever she chose to, which I absolutely loved about her. Gabriella could be badass one day, and sweet when we were alone together, or even when Eyeball was hanging around with us. Eyeball seemed to tolerate Gabriella whenever she was around, which made me happy.

I saw a couple different emotions flash across Eyeball's eyes. I swear to God I saw something like jealousy. My mouth knowingly curved up into one of my famous Merrill smirks. The dude was probably extremely jealous that I had a smoking hot girlfriend, and he didn't even _have_ a girlfriend to brag about. Although Eyeball didn't really talk to girls, he talked to members of the gang or mainly myself. I hadn't seen him talk to a girl his age (that wasn't a member of his family) in a long time. So the fact that Eyeball didn't talk to girls his age made me think he was jealous. I took another sip of my cold beer, the smirk still plastered on my lips after I pulled the bottle away from my mouth. Yeah, that was it.

 **XXX**

 **Gordie's POV**

Hell yeah, I was still mad at Chris. I grabbed the next volume of the comic book series that I was reading. Well, "mad" is such a strong word. It was more like awkwardness mixed with a twinge of fear for both our sakes, mixed with annoyance. Those emotions were all mixed in together the aforementioned madness to create that hybrid blend of sticky, stupid, sucky emotions. Don't get me wrong, it was still awkward as fuck between the two of us. I didn't even know why I was so damn angry at Chris, to be honest. Because I knew that I hadn't exactly pulled away from him when he kissed me. So with that thought in mind, I could only come up with this observation: I wasn't sure _why_ I was mad at him. Seeing as he was the one who instigated the kiss, not me; I hadn't kissed him, Chris had kissed _me_ like the world was going to end in a few damned days. I was angry at him, even if I didn't know the exact reasoning behind my anger. I just knew that I was angry at Chris. Although, now that I think about it, I guess I was more angry at _myself_ than him. I was mad at myself for things that didn't directly pertain to me.

I sighed heavily and flopped down in my spot again, opening up the comic book in my hands. I could feel Chris's ocean blue eyes burning into the side of my face, watching me, studying my reactions, looking for any clues that would help him understand what was going through my head. I carefully concealed what I was feeling; hiding what I was thinking. I pushed back thoughts of Chris and the we-will-never-speak-of-this-again-ever kiss that happened in my hospital room, pushed them all the way back into what I thought was one of the most darkest corners of my mind. Just one.

"You're doing that thing again, man." Chris spoke up after a few seconds of stretched out silence between us, taking a drag from his cigarette and exhaling the smoke away from me, like I had asked him to do when he first came into the treehouse. I was somewhat happy that he still complied with my wishes, despite that it was about twenty minutes ago that Chris had come up here. But I knew Chris, admittedly a lot better than I knew myself. And I think that Chris knew me a lot better than I knew _myself_. He would jump in front of a moving train, or jump off a bridge into the icy water below in only his underwear if I had somehow convinced him enough. Not that I ever would tell Chris to do that, of course. And I would do anything Chris asked me to in a heartbeat.

"What thing?" I asked, criss-cross-apple-saucing my legs and balancing my bony elbows delicately on my pale thighs. I didn't lift my head to look over at him, instead busying myself with the colorful page in my comic book.

"The thing where I can't get a read on your thoughts or your emotions, dude." Chris said. I mentally swore. Shit, he could read me like a book, no problem. Which is a blessing and a curse. A blessing in most cases. A curse, in this particular case.

"Yeah, and?" I let the question hang in the air. I didn't elaborate. Didn't want to, didn't need to. Chris was smart enough to know what I was talking about, what I was trying to get at, what I was doing.

"Why are you shutting me out again?" Chris asked, his voice cracking slightly at the end. Like I said, he knew what I was deliberately doing.

"I'm not shutting you out." A blatant lie.

"You are." He retaliated. I didn't try to fight him on that. He and I both knew that it was completely true. "I want to know why."

"No." I said forcefully. I wasn't going to speak to him about it. I hoped that he would drop it but Chris, being the stubborn ass he was - didn't.

"Damn it, Gordie, please?" He asked, desperation creeping into his voice.

I licked my lips. "No." I stuck to my guns, as that saying goes. "I just don't feel like telling you, man." And as soon as those words left my mouth, we launched into a childish, petty argument.

 **XXX**

 **Eyeball's POV**

I took a sip of water, keeping my eyes trained on Ace's back, his moving hands, and his handiwork. Ace knew what he was doing, and I had to admire that about him. His uncle was a mechanic, and Ace naturally loved all cars and anything with an engine and wheels, so Ace had his uncle Uriah help him become an expert on cars and all their parts, what they did and how to fix them if they weren't working properly. Ace knew basically all there was to know about cars. Which comes in handy in unfortunate situations like these. I swallowed the sip of water, then rolled my eyes once Ace kept talking about his girlfriend, how beautiful and badass she was. "You know, you don't have to constantly talk about your girlfriend, man. You need to shut the fuck up about her, okay? Jesus goddamned Christ." I commented, annoyance seeping through my words. My entire demeanor changed in an instant, from happy, light and carefree to annoyed, envious, and angry.

Ace stopped his work on the car once I said that, turning to me. His eyes were cool. He kept his face clean of emotion, but something flickered in his eyes. I braced myself for an insult or something. I knew he wouldn't physically slap me like he had done once or twice with Charlie, Fuzzy, and Billy when they said the wrong thing or did something incredibly moronic, like rob a continence store and get caught by the po-po (when they got out of the slammer for however long they were stewing in there for - it varied depending on the crime) Ace would slap them across the face, or kick them in the nuts, or punch them in the gut for being so god damned stupid). Ace would never lay a hand on me with the intentions to actually hurt me. Never. "Are you jealous?" Is the only thing he said. There was a softness about his tone that both alarmed me and made me angry.

I sure as hell was jealous, but not of the fact that Ace had a girlfriend and I didn't. It was because I… I had feelings for my best friend. It had taken me two years of confusion, anger at myself and my damn fucking feelings, emotional pain and (admittedly) depression to figure that out. But I wouldn't dare admit my secret crush on Ace to anyone out loud, especially not to Ace freaking Merrill himself. "I'm not." I said through gritted teeth. Ace stared at me for a long moment before turning his attention to his car again. He didn't believe me, I knew that.

"Yeah." He muttered, pausing to take a swing of beer. "Right."

Anger spiked through my veins, but I quickly distracted myself by taking another sip of water. But the water did nothing to quench the jealousy fire that was burning up in my stomach. The fire was really uncomfortable. I shifted my weight, but that did nothing to help quench the damn jealousy fire in my body. Fuck emotions. They're stupid fucking things. I hate them a lot. Damn emotions.

I hastily let the subject go (for fear of starting an argument) and so did Ace, thankfully. Normally, he would have teased me about it or hounded me about the subject until I was at the end of my rope and snapped at him, but today just wasn't his day, apparently. Most days weren't, actually. Not that I could blame him, of course. We all had our bad days, yet Ace had a "bad day" almost every single day of his life. Although, he told me that whenever he was with me, his days didn't "suck as much ass", which made me feel a little bit better about myself (I didn't have low self-esteem unlike some people I know, I still don't to this day, but I liked to have things that made me feel better), seeing as I was helping brighten Ace Merrill's dark, shitty days. I had a feeling that I always had been brightening up his days ever since we became close - not nearly best - friends.

After a long while of silence and a shit ton of fixing-up-mechanical-parts happening, Ace stopped his work, finally slamming the hood of his car shut. He looked a little annoyed, and my stomach fluttered uncomfortably. "I'm done." He announced loudly. I went to take another swing of water, realized it was empty, and threw it away from me, in the tall grass. I heard it hit the grassy ground with a plunk.

"Does that mean you're finished with the car or you're stopping because you're frustrated?" Because that could be either of the two. Usually, I could read Ace like a book, like Chris could with the LaChance kid. Someone once called it the Chamber charm. I almost punched the poor dude. However I couldn't really tell why Ace slammed the hood of the car down

"I'm done with fixing up the car." He replied.

I frowned. "Then why did you look so angry?"

"I was angry because it took me so fucking long to fix. Now I'm relieved. Anyway, we can get going now." Ace said. "I don't think we'll break down again."

"Good." I nodded, then hopped in the car. I watched Ace put away his tools into the toolbox, biting my lower lip. Ace rounded the car and popped open the trunk, placing the toolbox down. He hopped into the car with me after slamming the trunk shut. He glanced at me as he turned on the ignition, and I kept my eyes on him for a second. We were off, driving down the hot, sun baked road. I drummed my hands against the dashboard of Ace's car absentmindedly, trying to think of something else - anything - than Ace and his stupid girlfriend he won't shut his trap about. I was jealous and bitter. I felt like I should have been Ace's boyfriend, not Gabby. I should be the one he can't stop gushing about. Back then, I was aware of the fact that it was selfish of me, but I didn't give a crap. Ace Merrill was - and still is - my best friend in the entire world. He's the only thing I truly care about. My mindset that I only cared about Ace, that everything else could fuck off. Now looking back on my mindset, I realize now that my thinking back then was toxic. But at the time I didn't care. I would instantly put his happiness before my own. I would take a bullet for him. I would do anything for Ace.

"Eyeball!" Ace yelled. I jumped, then glared darkly at him, heart thundering.

"What?!" I instinctively matched his loud tone, my heart still racing in my chest.

"Can you stop with your damn tapping? It's distracting me. You don't want me to get us into a car accident, do you?" Ace asked, quieter this time. I looked down at my hands, which I realized were still rapidly tapping against his dashboard. I slowly lifted my hands away from the dashboard. My nerve ends tingled, my hands were tinted a light pink from tapping so hard, and they throbbed.

I placed my hands on my thighs, quickly apologizing. "No, no I don't want to get into a car accident. I'm sorry. I literally can't help it." And Ace knew that was true. I couldn't help it because of my ADHD. He was just snappy at me because I snapped at him earlier for the girlfriend comment. He would calm down quickly, because he couldn't stay mad at me forever. He couldn't hold a grudge against his best friend, much like how Gordie couldn't stay mad at my rascal of a brother. It wasn't in mine and Gordie's nature to hold a grudge against our best friends, but when it came to anyone else except for Chris and Ace, Gordie and myself could really hold a grudge. When we were older, Gordie told me that he didn't really speak to Chris - or was even best friends with him - for eleven weeks, that really surprised me.

Ace nodded and turned his attention back to the road, eyes steely. I kept silent and so did Ace as we drove along the endless stretches of dusty roads with thick, comfortable silence filling the car.

 **XXX**

The first thing I did when I hopped out of the car was put Denny's (sorry, my) hat on. The rest of the car ride went smoothly, so Ace did something right. Speaking of Ace, he pulled the keys out of the ignition and hopped out too. He stretched and I heard his joints pop. He let out a loud groan/yell while stretching, and I raised my eyebrow. He turned to me, a glint in his eyes. "So, where do you want to go?" He asked.

We were in a town called Ravenswood. It was a fairly small town, about three thousand people. It had mostly the same layout as Castle Rock did. "You wanna go get ice cream?" I said, rolling my shoulders.

He looked at me with a deadpan expression. "What are we, five years old?"

I smirked. "And a half." I said in an overly childish voice.

Ace rolled his eyes. "Yeah yeah. I'll get some ice cream with you."

I grinned and patted his head. "I have money. I'll pay."

"No, man. I can pay." He said immediately after, in one of his rare kind tones.

I didn't feel like prettily arguing with him, so I just nodded. "Okay, but just know that I'll feel guilty for a while after."

Ace shrugged. "Don't feel guilty." He said, as if that would make me *not* feel guilty in the first place.

I started to protest, but Ace cut me off by holding his hand up. "Don't." He said sternly. "Think of it as a kind, wholesome gesture. A rare treat from me to you."

I rolled my eyes. "You don't ever give out anything to anyone, dude. Except for a lousy pack of cigarettes, if that. You ain't exactly the giving type."

"I know - I'm not some damn charity." Which was true. "And what the hell do you mean by "lousy"?" Ace asked with a tilt of his head, and we started walking down the sidewalk in search of a suitable ice cream parlor.

"Yeah. Most of the packs you hand to the gang are cheap, lousy replicants." And they were. Often times Charlie would bitch and moan about the horrible knockoffs - when Ace would give me and only me the real deal - as Ace handed the packs of smokes out to everyone who wanted one, but one simple threat from Ace stopped him from complaining.

"I know. That's because they aren't my best friends." He said in this soft tone that made my stomach fill with warmth and my heart flutter like an small, idiotic schoolgirl's would. He only reserved that tone of voice for me, and me alone. Nobody else. Call me privileged or a "special snowflake" or whatever else you want, but I'm glad I'm Ace Merrill's best friend. I wouldn't have it any other way, to be truthful.

"That's so cute I want to puke. You're a pansy." I teased, then playfully ruffled his hair, causing a laugh to bubble up past Ace's lips.

"I am not a pansy, you douchedick."

I raised my eyebrow. "Douchedick?" I repeated, amused. "That's a new one."

"Yeah, and I'm sticking with it." Ace muttered. We walked across a cross walk, keeping our eyes peeled for an ice cream parlor.

"Like you stuck with "fucking skank-asshat"?" I challenged, keeping my voice playful. A year ago, Ace had gone through a sudden and brief period where he called people he didn't like or people who annoyed him a "fucking skank-asshat". For example, when Charlie was being annoying (like the kid usually was), Ace would call him a fucking skank-asshat followed by a threat. That shut Charlie up real quick - the threat, I mean. Ace's new "swear word" had quickly gotten stale, so he came up with another "swear word": ass-nut. Yeah, don't even ask.

"Shut up." He said, but there was no heat behind his words. I just rolled my eyes, chuckling quietly.

"Yeah yeah, come on." I said, patting his back, amusement flickering through me like a candlelight.

A few minutes later, we entered an ice cream shop and ordered our ice cream. I sat down at a table and looked out the window, taking in the town's livelihood, how people milled about. The lady at the counter called my name holding my ice cream in her hand, and I went over and got it. Ace got his shortly after I did, and we walked outside, into the warm sunlight. I took a lick of my ice cream, letting the cold sweetness burst across my tongue.

Ace nudged me suddenly. "C'mon, let's go sit over there." He pointed to a park bench situated by a tree, near a convenience store.

I nodded and headed over there, Ace following. Ace sat down, and I sat down next to him, smiling. Ace smiled back at me, his eyes bright in the sunlight.

 **XXX**

 **Chris's POV**

I glanced over at Gordie, feeling more and more annoyed by the second. Gordie was completely absorbed with his comic book, reading it in favor of ignoring me. I exhaled slowly, then threw the stub of my cigarette out the treehouse's window, seeing as I was done with it. "Gordie, man, talk to me."

Gordie kept silent. I bit back a sigh of annoyance. Damn that stubborn teenage boy and his stubborn genes.

I chewed on my lower lip, trying hard not to start screaming at him. That would be really fucking bad, not to mention extremely childish of me. "You're mad at me. I want to know why."

Gordie's eyes snapped up and he slammed the comic book closed, throwing it next to him. "It's because you fucking kissed me."

I blinked. I was half expecting that answer. But, okay, at least he finally admitted what was bothering him these past few weeks. But he was mad at me because I was worried about him in some kind of weird maybe-more-than-just-a-friend way? How did _that_ make sense? "What?" I asked dumbly.

"I'm mad at you because you kissed me!" He shouted, making me jump.

I tried to wrap my head around that statement, to think logically about it. But I couldn't think of anything, because it didn't make any sense. I knew his anger was directed at me full frontal, but that anger seemed… misplaced. If I really picked apart words he said and his actions around me throughout the last few weeks or so after he got out of the hospital, Gordie sounded more angry at _himself_ than _me_. So was he mad at me because I was the one who instigated the kiss, or was he mad at himself because he didn't stop me, and continued to kiss me after the fact? I wasn't sure.

"Gordie, hey, dude-" I tried to say, but he cut me off by holding his hand up. I fell silent, waiting for him to stop yelling at me. I felt like shit.

"You don't think that you just can't not talk to me about it for weeks, like I would just forget about it?!" Gordie narrowed his eyes at me dangerously. "Don't you think that's a little selfish of you?"

I felt even crappier. I knew that it was selfish of me, but I hadn't wanted to address the… situation… because I was really nervous it would ruin our friendship completely. Call it cowardly or whatever you want, but I was really nervous. Gordie was my best friend in the entire world, what if I fucked up our friendship by talking even more about it? But then Gordie had suddenly popped his top, and I was thrown off guard. "I'm sorry." It sounded more like a meek question than a statement, but I was sorry.

"Yeah, well you can shove that apology up your fucking ass! You should have said something to me before! It's been fucking weeks! _EIGHT_ weeks!" He shouted, and I winced. "Do you know how much fucking pain I've been in, worrying about if we messed up our friendship because I allowed you to kiss me? Do you know how confused I've been? Do you know how worried I've been?! You probably hate me now or something!"

I put my hands up in the universal "don't shoot, I'm innocent" gesture. "Gordie, man, it's okay! I don't hate you! And I'm sorry if I made you think that I hate you."

"Stop apologizing!" He yelled, and I took a deep breath to calm myself down. At least he was talking to me. Albeit it was angry yelling, but it was something. He punched my chest, and I tried not to glare at him for that.

I did the only thing I could think of in that moment. I grabbed his warm hand as it started to pull away from my chest, laced our fingers together, leaned forward and crushed my lips onto his.


End file.
